Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)

Cleo: Yalitza Aparicio
Sofia: Marina de Tavira
Toño: Diego Cortina Autrey
Paco: Carlos Peralta
Pepe: Marco Graf
Sofi: Daniela Demesa
Adela: Nancy García García
Teresa: Verónica García
Ignacio: Andy Cortés
Antonio: Fernando Grediaga
Fermín: Jorge Antonio Guerrera
Ramón: José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza
Prof. Zovek: Latin Lover

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Screenplay: Alfonso Cuarón
Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón
Production design: Eugenio Caballero
Film editing: Alfonso Cuarón, Adam Gough

Award season buzz has been intense around Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, partly because it was released in the United States by Netflix, with a short, Oscar-qualifying theatrical run before its appearance on the streaming service in December. It deserves the attention: It's a satisfying, handsomely mounted story with some moments of intense action and genuine heartfelt drama. There are those who think it may be too handsomely mounted, too beautifully photographed, with its peak moments, such as the struggle in the surf, subtly sweetened by special effects, all of this at the expense of some spontaneity and heart. Richard Brody of the New Yorker has argued that its point of view on the central character, Cleo, a woman of indigenous origins, is too external, too much informed by the "colonialist gaze" of Cuarón, who is admittedly basing the film on his memory of the woman who worked as nanny for his upper-class Mexico City household when he was a boy. She becomes the stereotypical strong, silent peasant, and the story becomes more about how Cuarón sees Cleo than about Cleo herself. I think perhaps Brody is guilty of something that critics so easily fall prey to: The desire to see another movie than the one that's on the screen. What's there is, setting aside any political or sociological matters, absorbing enough, and Yalitza Aparicio's performance gives us more of Cleo's inner life than Brody allows credit for. I would object to some of the conventional manipulation of the narrative, such as Cleo's encounter with Fermin in the chaotic midst of the Corpus Christi massacre, upon which she goes into labor with their stillborn child. That's taking coincidence to the breaking point while imbuing it with symbolic significance. But Roma takes me someplace I've never been before in the movies, and gives me much in both technique and story to appreciate. Best picture of the year? Probably not. But it's a good one.