Bitter Christmas

Pedro Almodóvar returns to his Spanish roots in this compelling story of how life intertwines with art. We begin in the noughts, as arthouse director Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) is reduced to shooting commercials. Around her move a merry-go-round of boyfriends, children and troubled friends. However, Elsa is a character in the script of Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a modern script writer struggling with how this tale of a woman reflects his own problems.

Almodóvar – in films like Power & Glory and Bad Education – always manages to ground tales of the art life in powerful emotion that digs beneath the artifice to what is driving the compulsion to create. This latest has all of his hallmarks –sumptuous colour, high camp LGBT characters given full lives, soap opera narrative turns – and ranks with his very best. An ideal introduction to one of cinema’s greats.