Roma
Real Emotion
Alfonso Cuarón is one of my favorite directors working today. Every step of this man’s career has been some sort of creative leap — whether it’s raunchy comedy, dystopian drama, Shakespeare adaptation, or a boundary-pushing space blockbuster, Cuarón approaches each project with such measured, clear focus that I am completely enthralled every time.
Where his early career was defined by Y Tu Mamá También, his later films have borrowed similar filmmaking techniques to tackle very different topics. His signature long takes make Children of Men harrowing, while his dedication to small character moments makes Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban many people’s favorite film in the series. But for a long time I wondered — would Cuarón ever return to something more like Y Tu Mamá También? Maybe it was just my great appreciation for that movie (the first movie I ever streamed on FlimStruck, RIP), but I wanted to seem him attempt something small and intimate again, but with the wisdom and experience he’s gathered in the last dozen-plus years.
And then he teams up with Netflix to release Roma. I’d heard the hype, but I didn’t get to see it during its theatrical run. I was working on a feature when it came out on Netflix, so I didn’t get to see it until now. And it was worth the wait.
Roma finds Cuarón at the top of his game. This is film so intimate, so achingly personal that something as mundane as eating an ice cream cone can carry enough emotional weight to make me physical uncomfortable. On paper, this might sound like a soap opera-level story, but to read the Wikipedia or Rotten Tomatoes summary is to do the film a great disservice. I recommend you watch this on the biggest and best screen available. This is a journey through a woman’s life — the good, the bad, the agonizing, and the terrifying.
Yalitza Aparicio is a wonder as Cleo. She was a teacher before she did this movie. This is her first movie. She delivers a performance so nuanced and raw here that I was absolutely astounded. A scene of her walking into the tide at a beach nearly broke my heart — it’s framed in one of Cuarón’s signature long takes on a wide lens, allowing us to see every detail of Cleo’s experience — and Aparicio shows us bravery, determination, exhaustion, and deep sorrow, all within a span of a few seconds. She does a wonderful job.
And the rest of the movie is just as beautiful. Cuarón shot it, which makes me ridiculously jealous. He gets to write, direct, produce, and shoot this thing? Not to mention co-edit. His complete creative control here allows him to infuse every second with as little or as much feeling as he chooses. We might watch a plane float across the frame. We might inspect a pile of dog excrement being crushed by a car tire. One sequence even seems to call back to two scenes from Y Tu Mamá También, with a quaint restaurant and a vast beach allowing for emotional moments not unlike what Julio and Tenoch experienced. Whatever it is we see, it’s shown to us with intention and purpose. The music in the film is used to complement the beautiful images and broad spectrum of emotions on display, and every scene is cut as minimally as possible. Cuarón loves his long takes, and I do, too. We feel every moment — every warm smile and fearful gaze — and no moment ever feels forced or unearned.
I understand how the story might seem slow at first to some. The movie takes its time at the start, layering in the different elements of the world that we’re going to be feeling for the rest of the runtime. But this build-up is important; Cuarón is introducing us to Cleo’s world. It’s not so different from the way he introduced us to Julio and Tenoch all those years ago. Where Y Tu Mamá También used its runtime to show us the characters’ youth and emotional vulnerability (underneath all the cursing and jokes), Roma allows us to see someone a little older, but still young at heart, coming to terms with some very grown-up ideas. It’s almost like Roma is the mature response to Y Tu Mamá También, giving a similar introspective look to someone who has still not fully accepted some difficult parts of being an adult. Juggling work, friends, and navigating the tricky waters of romance can be hard, and some of the later developments show how well Cleo manages to cope, even if she’s barely hiding some very raw emotions.
I don’t want to say too much more about this. I recommend you see it for yourself. It’s not one for kids or even young teens, and one particular scene left me at a complete loss for words with how raw and real and sudden it felt. But that’s a testament to everyone involved in the making of the movie; Cuarón and his cast and crew have given us something beautiful, sweet, and sad to look at and think about for a long time afterward.
