Maid (not) in Manhattan

Director’s partly personal tale is glorious tribute to women who raised him

FIVE years ago the Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron lived out his childhood dreams of being an astronaut in the Oscar-winning Gravity, a film so technically demanding that the makers had to invent the cutting-edge techniques as they went along.

Now Cuaron is back with a film that could not be more different. Set in 1970 in the middle-class suburb of Roma in Mexico City, and shot in creamy black and white, Roma is a domestic drama that barely leaves the street in which it is set.

Two worlds, one up there, one down here, giving rise to two equally wonderful films with heroines at their heart. Where Gravity had Sandra Bullock battling grief solo, Roma has Yalitza Aparicio, playing Cleo, a family maid. Cleo is one of several women in Roma whose lot in life is to clear up the mess made by men. Besides being one of the year’s most beautiful films, Roma can lay serious claim to being its most feminist.

Cuaron opens, fittingly, with a long shot of a courtyard being cleaned. Bucket after bucket of soapy water sluices over the tiles, making everything clean and ready to be dirtied again. Five foot nothing but strong as a boxer, Cleo does everything for this family of four children, two parents and one grandma, from picking up the dog’s mess to singing the children to sleep.

While Cleo plays a central part in family life she is not part of the family. Cuaron sums this up with a shrewd little scene in which Cleo is clearing up while the kids and parents are lolling on the sofa watching TV. Cleo sits down for a minute, one of the boys puts his arm around her. Just as she relaxes, the lady of the house, Sofia, asks her to make a cup of tea. It is just one of many reminders that this young woman from a remote village is a servant, working for board and lodging and not very much money.

In keeping with the rule that no mistress is a heroine to her maid, Cleo and her fellow maid Adela gently mock Sofia’s careful way with every penny. She is clingy with her husband, fraught, demanding and given to bursts of