2018 | Dir. Alfonso Cuarón | 135 Minutes
"We love you so much, Cleo."
The modest life of a live-in housekeeper for a middle-class household in 1970 Colonia Roma is disrupted by an unexpected pregnancy. As her employer's marriage falls apart, political turmoil on the streets boil over, and her own situation worsens, Cleo carries on with genuine love and support from the family she serves.
Roma is a meditative examination of a life that would typically be overlooked or dismissed outright for a narrative feature. Beautifully shot in striking black and white, writer/director Alfonso Cuarón accentuates major events of Cleo's story by setting them against the politically volatile times of early 1970s Mexico. Mounting tensions within Cleo's life and her household symbolically manifest into spontaneous forest fires and violence in the streets. Through all of her highs and lows, the profound affection that Cleo shares with the family that employs her figuratively and literally saves her life as well as theirs.
Dedicated to his childhood nanny and loosely based on her life, Caurón captures the minutiae of Cleo's day-to-day activities in tender loving detail. Through these moments and her interactions with the family, particularly with the children she tends to and cares for, Cleo is authentically presented as a fully defined human being with a dignified inner life, never framed as a doting servant but as a valued member of the household. Visually, the scope of the film gracefully expands in several key sequences featuring Cuarón's signature long extended takes that seamlessly build dramatic tension.
Without any formal acting experience, Yalitza Aparicio is warm, charming, and remarkably natural as Cleo, essentially the polar opposite of a big flashy lead performance in the best way possible. Aparicio is especially heartbreaking during the final stretch of the story that requires her to express great loss and greater bravery. Playing the mother of the family, Marina de Tavira effectively portrays a highly-educated headstrong woman on the cusp of a painful divorce, a person who could not be any more different from Cleo in terms of social status and temperament. Some of the film's best moments are shared between Aparicio and de Tavira, as Cuarón focuses on the struggles that the two women have in common.
Visually breathtaking, crafted with love and precision, Roma is a comprehensive showcase of Alfonso Cuarón's skills as storyteller and filmmaker. The picture takes a deeply personal and compassionate look at the life of a humble servant and presents it on a scale that gracefully shifts between intimate and epic. The deliberate pacing the film may be a detractor for some viewers, but the human story of perseverance and unconditional love at its core is profoundly moving and absolutely worthy of an audience.
FRAGMENTS
- Like the character she portrays, Yalitza Aparicio cannot swim and was terrified about the climatic sequence on the beach
- The family goes to the cinema to see the 1969 space adventure film Marooned starring Gregory Peck, a direct inspiration for Alfonso Cuarón's 2013 film Gravity for which he won an Oscar for Best Director
