Roma

Score:  A-

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Starring Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira
Running time: 135 minutes
Rated R

Long Story Short:  Roma is an intensely personal, small-scale film for the director of such hits as Harry Potter (#3) and Gravity.  It focuses on a family based on Cuaron's own childhood, centered especially on the maid/nanny who is played beautifully by acting novice Aparicio.  The first half is rather slow though vivid in its portrait of the family, before increasing the narrative and emotional stakes in a powerful but still realistic second half.  Highly recommended.


Cleo Gutierrez (Aparicio) is a live-in maid and nanny to a Mexican family in the early 1970s.  Sofia (de Tavira) and her mother run the household as her husband flits in and out of the home.  It is the children, three boys and a girl, who Cleo knows and loves the best, rousing them from bed each morning, preparing meals, and gently breaking up their sibling squabbles.  Her peaceful but uneventful life swerves into turmoil, however, as she is courted by a young man, joins the family on a strained holiday getaway, and witnesses the violence of civil unrest.  Life is change; a strong soul, Cleo will both be changed by her world as well as exert her influence on those around her.

Roma has a small cast of native Mexican actors, led by a revelatory performance from a newcomer.  Yalitza Aparicio plays Cleo, the lead in the film who is in nearly every frame - and she had never acted before.  Regardless of her lack of experience, Aparicio does a phenomenal job as the quiet but dedicated and compassionate maid and nanny.  The naturalism of the film's style, and her role in particular, may have actually made the inexperience an advantage: much of her acting is literally doing work around the house, interacting with others in a caring yet minimalistic way.  But she also does outstanding work in the more dramatic, emotional moments, coming off just as believable (and heartbreakingly so).  Marina de Tavira, who is a professional actor, gets the main supporting role as the matriarch of the home, Sofia.  While the focus rarely strays from Cleo, Marina asserts herself in crucial moments, and her importance to the family - in a strange but lovely duet with Cleo - rises throughout.  Like any well-developed character, she illustrates both Sofia's vulnerabilities, as she feels increasingly isolated, as well as her strength, in pulling her family - and herself - through adversity.  The child actors do quite well, too: each distinctive, and very much wonderfully unpredictable creatures while not getting in the way, acting-wise, of the main players.

Roma is a warm, intimate film, full of lasting images and moments both of quiet contemplation and searing emotion.  The story is based on writer and director Alfonso Cuaron's own childhood growing up in Mexico, and particularly his fondness and respect for his family's own Cleo-like figure.  It is shot in black and white though with modern digital technology, producing the look and feel of a vivid memory.  The movie's first half is its most naturalistic, taking its time in showing the daily life of the family, though at the same time setting the narrative stage of the family's absent father and Cleo's full (limited) social circle.  The opening credits play over a shot of a single area of tiled garage, soapy water splashing as Cleo washes somewhere offscreen; it reminded me of the calm, beautiful start to The Revenant and its gorgeous, trickling winter stream.  This is good preparation for the somewhat meandering first half, which is highlighted by Cleo's relationships with the children, singing quietly to them in bed or lying in the sun together on the roof.  While it's all well done, this does start to drag as it takes over an hour of the two hour, fifteen minute run time.  The second half is where more of a narrative comes in, based mostly on Cleo's pregnancy and the departure of the father.  It sprinkles in historic events on the periphery, for context.  Thanks to Aparicio and de Tavira's fine performances, the heights - Cleo's selfless protection of the children on a beach - and depths - tragedy in chaotic circumstances - carry great weight.  Yet the film remains naturalistic, a memory, as the final scene shows Cleo silently carrying on - literally, carrying laundry to the roof - even after the all the momentous events of the past year we just witnessed.

***

Roma is a great film, and noteworthy in its production and distribution as well.  Roma was (is) distributed by Netflix, the massive streaming company's first Best Picture-nominated film.  Not only is this yet another signifier of the company's growing power and influence, but - more positively - it makes the work immediately available to millions of people around the world (as opposed to most Oscar prestige films which open in a handful of cities and only to the rest of the world much later, if at all).  Combine this availability with the fact that Roma is a foreign language film, and this represents an excellent opportunity to spread diverse, high-quality art widely.  I must also admit that for those of us with short attention spans, getting to see Roma at home is also an advantage so you can watch this deliberately-paced film in chunks (I highly recommend splitting it in two, with an "intermission").  I encourage you to stream this sometime soon, and if you don't have Netflix, get it for a month (and while you've got it, try Avengers: Infinity War for counterprogramming).



* By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59422310