‘Roma’ brings Netflix to a whole new level
“Roma” was given the New York Film Critics’ Award, one of the most prestigious of end-ofyear honors, as Best Picture for 2018.
“Roma,” though nominated for a Golden Globe Award solely in the foreign film category, is considered a strong contender for an Academy Award nod, possibly for the Oscar itself.
“Roma,” which may not have yet landed on the general radar, has a chance to make history and put a new feather in Netflix’s already well-plumed cap.
That’s because the prolific streamer acquired distribution rights to “Roma” in April. To make sure the movie gets consideration for major film accolades, Netflix opened it in thousands of theaters last week.
Netflix subscribers will not have to visit local cinemas to see “Roma” It is streaming the movie for its audiences on Friday.
This way, TV audiences can watch an Oscar contender en masse while sitting in their living rooms or viewing places of choice.
For television of any kind, it’s a breakthrough.
Netflix had a triumph of sorts last year when one of its products, “Mudbound” earned some Oscar nominations, including one as Best Supporting Actress for Mary J. Blige.
If “Roma” scores a nomination for Best Picture, it will take Netflix’s game to a whole different level.
In a 1978 interview, the great Bette Davis told me there’s no distinction in her mind about making a movie for television or one for the movie theater. They both, she said, require acting, attention to the character and connecting with the audience.
I’ve always taken Ms. Davis’s point to heart, or at least as a perspective about writing about films made for TV.
In the history of television, no movie originating on TV has been treated seriously by the film community. “Testament,” which played on ABC in 1983, came close when its lead, Jane Alexander, glommed an Oscar nod for Best Actress. “Mudbound” certainly pushed the needle in a new direction.
“Roma” has the chance to blur the line between theatrical release and television presentation.
Inventive Netflix may have come up with a formula that allows a single work simultaneous consideration as a movie and a TV show.
This is good for the entertainment industry and its audience. It gives a mass of people access to a film that might have been relegated to art houses as a succes d’estime and gives it equal status as a popular work.
A lot of movies nominated for Oscars are obscure to the average person. I think one of the reasons ratings for awards shows constantly decline is TV audiences are increasingly less interested in fare that is unfamiliar to them. “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” were popular movies that made film snobs pay attention. Many regular moviegoers may not recognize “The Wife,” “Green Book,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” or “The Favourite,” all of which figure in the 2018 movie award season.
What if those movies were streamed so Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and other companies could introduce them to wider audiences than they’re likely to get at theaters?
That’s what Friday means for “Roma.”
Its presentation manages several leaps at once. It can popularize a work that may have remained acclaimed but obscure. It makes streaming a more valuable and more timely contributor to entertainment and cultural literacy. Best of all, it catapults Netflix and its main streaming competitors to becoming a larger force in the general movie industry.
Important products can emerge from, and be seen, anywhere. Independent film, already respected for its courage, variety, and vitality, has a better chance of being noticed and savored for the qualities that have made it a critics’ and movie buff’s darling. Streamers can compete with more traditional distributors, just as they have in television, and take a work further than a theater system allows.
Netflix isn’t making audiences wait until after the Oscars to see “Roma.” Nor is it charging any premium or special fee for someone to watch it.
“Roma” will be available on Friday for anyone to see, via Netflix, which may eventually have its foresight and taste recognized by having a current Best Film nominee among its offerings.
If “Roma” somehow beats “A Star is Born” or “Green Book” or “BlacKKKlansman” for the Oscar, television will gain parity with established filmmakers and distributors of movies, a milestone that will be huge.
Set in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City in 1970, “Roma” has a grainy, realistic quality reminiscent of postWorld War II Italian movies by Vittorio deSica and Roberto Rossellini. Much happens to, around, and within the Mexican middle-class family that director Alfonso Cuarón, a 2013 Oscar winner for “Gravity,” depicts vividly but matter-of-factly.
Whether divorce, miscarriage, betrayal, heroic rescue, or the simple growing a human does over time, Cuarón poses it as an incidental occurrence. Drama is rife in several situations, but it’s muted in Cuarón’s presentation. The underplaying makes it seem a part of everyday existence, life bringing highs and lows as it sails on impervious to most shocks and dull times. Concern for a tense situation comes from the care you begin to feel about the family depicted, especially its maid, Cleo, played exquisitely and with much feeling by Yalitza Aparicio.
“Roma” builds as it proceeds. It may not always satisfy or constantly announce Cuarón’s genius for making details of a scene complete, but it builds slowly and plangently until it involves you. It invests the audiences in its scenes, and in the life and dilemmas of Cleo and her employer, Sofia, played with neurotic charm by Marina de Tavira. By the time it ends, you have been subtly immersed in a milieu Cuarón has made familiar, and Aparicio, de Tavira, and Verónica Garcia, as Sofia’s mother, have humanized to an affecting point.
My jury is out for 2018’s Best Picture. I still have some contenders to see. Right now, my favorite movie of the year, “Juliet, Naked,” has made no lists and looks likely to be forgotten in post-season tallies. Let that be a lesson to me. And to you.
I saw “Roma” in the movies, but I relish the idea that it will be available to all on Friday and look forward to its success in heralding a new era for movie distribution and the yet further importance of Netflix.