‘Roma’ wows technically but just can’t quite connect
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With his new Spanish-language movie “Roma,” Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron keeps the story straightforward while trying to inject a big heart into a sprawling year in the life of a Mexico City family and their loyal live-in maid.
Beautifully shot in black and white and based on Cuaron’s own childhood, Netflix’s awards-season hopeful is the most personal film in the director’s filmography, one that runs the gamut from a “Harry Potter” adventure (“The Prisoner of Azkaban”) to outer-space drama “Gravity.” By contrast, “Roma” ( ★★★☆; rated R; in theaters now in New York and Los Angeles, expands to select cities before streaming Dec. 14) couldn’t be more down to earth, an intriguing study in human dynamics and an exploration of how important certain people are who come into our lives during a formative time.
Played with fantastic heart and depth by newcomer Yalitza Aparicio, Cleo scrubs, dusts, cooks but most importantly loves the four children she looks after in the middle-class Roma district circa early 1970s. She’s both cleaning lady and parental figure in a household that’s solid on the surface yet hiding severe fissures.
Sofia (Marina de Tavira) is the constantly frazzled mother who sometimes takes her frustration out on Cleo. Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) is the doctor father with the too-big car and the too-small garage who embarks on a parking adventure every night set to the tune of classical music and screeching metal. Their marriage is clearly falling apart to anyone paying attention, though Cleo tries to keep everything as normal for the kids as possible.
Her own life – which Cuaron makes sure to give equal weight – is also fraught with obstacles. Cleo becomes pregnant via a loser guy (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) who fashions himself a martial-arts master: She tells him the news in a movie theater, and he heads to the restroom and never comes back. Meanwhile, Cleo weathers mental and physical struggles with her impending motherhood – her water breaks during a violent street riot that spills into the furniture store where she’s shopping for a crib.
Cuaron brings an extraordinary eye for details, such as a close-up on a plane flying overhead reflected in sudsy cleaning water and a shared language between the working class: Cleo speaks Spanish with her family and Mixteco, an indigenous Mexican dialect, with her fellow maid Adela (Nancy Garcia). For much of the movie, the camera remains at a distance from the action and pans from
side to side, watching the characters love and laugh, cry and fight. It’s a bold choice because you get to watch every- thing unfold – with the occasional marching band dissonantly stomping by – though it also creates a certain disconnect, leaving a viewer feeling more like a casual observer than a fully invested participant.
Those who adored Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” will appreciate Cuaron’s slice-of-life journey through various episodes mostly centered on Cleo: Some lean comedic, a few sublime, while others are quite dark (one in particular will be extraordinarily hard to watch for parents).
“Roma” is an elegiac and moving work driven by Aparicio’s understated and nuanced performance as a self-sacrificing woman who wakes up her beloved charges with forehead kisses and has real conversations with them, laying the foundation for a moving climax. While not a storytelling achievement, it is a technical marvel that makes the most of Cuaron’s bountiful passion.