Movie Review: Roma

Roma **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Alfonso Cuaron.

Written by: Alfonso Cuaron.

Starring: Yalitza Aparicio (Cleo), Marina de Tavira (Sra. Sofía), Diego Cortina Autrey (Toño), Carlos Peralta (Paco), Marco Graf (Pepe), Daniela Demesa (Sofi), Nancy García (Adela), Verónica García (Sra. Teresa), Andy Cortés (Ignacio), Fernando Grediaga (Sr. Antonio), Jorge Antonio Guerrero (Fermín), José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza (Ramón), Latin Lover (Profesor Zovek), Zarela Lizbeth Chinolla Arellano (Dra. Velez), José Luis López Gómez (Pediatra), Edwin Mendoza Ramírez (Médico Residente), Clementina Guadarrama (Benita), Enoc Leaño (Político), Nicolás Peréz Taylor Félix (Beto Pardo), Kjartan Halvorsen (Ove Larsen), Felix Gomez (Transeunte). 

 

Many filmmakers get to a point in their career (some start there) where they want to look back at their childhood – which is why we get so many sentimental, nostalgic films for the years gone past (we’re stuck in a wave of ‘80s nostalgia right now, probably because the people who were teenagers then are in control of things now). In some ways Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma is another one of these films – as it is clearly set in the time of Cuaron’s own childhood, and yet he has not made a hazy, nostalgic film at all. And he hasn’t even made a film about a young Alfonso Cuaron. Instead, he has made a film as a tribute to the women who raised him and formed him – most specifically, a film about Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the maid and nanny for an upper middle class family, seen through own chaotic year of her life in the early 1970s. The film is very aware of the world around Cleo and this family – it shows it us often (mostly, in the background), but it remains a personal story.

 

We get to know Cleo slowly during the course of the film. The style Cuaron has chosen for the film is mainly made up of master shots – taking in the entirety of a scene, that he then let’s play out. There aren’t a lot of close-ups in the film, the editing allows shots to play out at length. He shot the film himself in beautiful black and white images, and doesn’t feature any score at all. And yet, while this may make Roma sound like “slow” cinema – this is hardly Bela Tarr territory here. The film feels alive, in large part because the sound design seems so intricately constructed. The film will call to mind the early (perhaps later) films of Federico Fellini (the movie does share a title with a Fellini movie from 1972, also based on the director’s life). But make no mistake, this is an intensely personal film for Cuaron.

 

Cleo does seem fairly happy in her life – for the most part, the family treats her nicely, almost like one of the family (not quite, she has more riles to follow – some of them very petty), and the four children she helps to raise really do love her – and she loves them. But will follow for the next year plunges the family and Cleo into personal chaos – first when the patriarch leaves the family for his mistress (but they don’t tell the children – they think he’s away doing “research)) and second when Cleo finds herself pregnant after a brief relationship with a young man, who takes off literally the minute she tells him (they’re watching a movie – and he says he needs to do to the bathroom). She is worried about her job – but the family is supportive, taking her to the doctor, taking her to buy a crib for the child, etc. She is still worried about how she is going to raise the child on her own. Meanwhile, the wife and mother of the family tries to keep everything together after she herself is abandoned – and money stops coming in, apparently because the father says he has none – although he has enough to take up scuba diving with his new girlfriend.

 

Roma is the rare film that is both very episodic, and yet feels like a whole coherent picture, rather than just snapshots of a life. The style helps a lot, because it remains the through line of the film. As does Yalitza Aparicio’s wonderful, subtle, quiet performance as Cleo – someone who mostly keeps her thoughts to herself. The movie does build to two large emotional payoffs in the final minutes – and they do not feel like cheating. They feel earned – as did the tears I shed during them.

 

The film will be released mainly on Netflix worldwide – with a few screenings in theaters. If you are lucky enough to see it on a big screen (like I did at TIFF), run don’t walk. Yes, the images are beautiful – and deserve to be seen on the biggest screen possible. But the sound design is perhaps even more intricate – and more deserving of the theatrical experience. I’m not blaming Netflix here – they have their business model, and it’s good they finance films like this. Yet, I do wish more people outside of festivals or big cities could this remarkably beautiful film on the big screen – as it so clearly demands to be seen.