Cannes 2026 – Autofiction: beautiful and incandescent (review)

After Pain and Glory, Almodóvar returns to autofiction, which he approaches as a cruel questioning of art and the pain that we steal from others.

At first we think we are on familiar ground. Seven years ago, Pain and Glory had upset us to the point that we forgave Pedro Almodovar to write about himself – it was done with grace and magic. If it takes up the autofictional principle even in its title, Autofiction is however of another caliber. A bit like a crueler little brother. It’s the same house, the same spirit, but without the comfort. Here, the surrogate filmmaker (Leonardo Sbaraglia) is not in remission, he is running out of fuel, and to cope, he monopolizes the story and the emotions of those close to him.

And for his new scenario, he invents an alter-ego, Elsa (Barbara Lennie), whom he will watch sink into depression and collapse in Lanzarote on a bed covered in coats, while a young beauty sings with her bare voice. The sequence is sublime. Even paralyzing. Except that we quickly discover that the character of Elsa is sewn into the real pain of the filmmaker’s friends. She has migraines from one, mourns the loss of another, and mourns the dead child of a third. Each beauty in the film is therefore a bloodletting.

This is the principle of Autofiction. Everything is beautiful and ugly at the same time. Bright and sad. Unlike Pain and Glory, Almodóvar is no longer looking for appeasement, he is in court. And he is the accused, parading his accomplices, his muses, his actresses, his songs, to ask the only question that matters: deep down, what did I live on? What pains of others have nourished my art? The gesture could be indecent, if it were not the subject of the film. Navel-gazing is the material here, never a fault. And this material, when it passes through Lennie, reaches pure moments of cinema. Pain and Glory was a confession, Autofiction is a confession. It’s less friendly and more honest. And almost bigger.

By Pedro Almodóvar. With Leonardo Sbaraglia, Barbara Lennie, Vicky Luengo… Duration: 1h51. Released May 20, 2026