Roma

Sometimes it's not easy being human. The wifi is crappy, the plumber doesn’t show up on time, the boss is a dick and the love life has descended into one endless spiral of misery and regret and the only escape is the sweet release of death. Okay, the last one may be just me but the point still stands. It is easy to lose hope and become cynical in this godforsaken piece of rock we call planet earth. But then every now and again a glimmer of light shines through and reminds us of the beauty, intelligence, and compassion that exists around us.

Roma, the new Alfonso Cuaron masterpiece is not just one such ray of light, it might just be the brightest one we have seen in a long time. It is a gorgeous example of what the best of cinema has to offer. The story is simple. It follows a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in 1970. More precisely it follows a year in the life of a maid hired by the family. This is a deeply personal film for Cuaron. The maid, here named Cleo, is based on Libo, a maid hired by Cuaron’s family when he was a child. Even though she lives with the family who tries to treat her like a family member, Cleo is pretty much an outsider. She still lives in a small room separate from the main house, can be called upon anytime to help out with household chores and has to even keep in check the amount of electricity she is allowed to use. However, we do not just stay in the house with her. We go out with her, as she lives her life. As she meets a friend, goes to the movies, goes on a date, and deals with personal trauma. On top of that, she is one of the indigenous people of Mexico, serving a white family, living in a white neighborhood. Cuaron brilliantly juxtaposes the relative economic prosperity of Cleo’s work family and her actual family to lay bare the deep economic disparity of Mexico of the early seventies. In fact, one of the many mindblowing achievements of Roma is how it manages to, in addition to being an intimate affair, be an examination of the macro socio-political and economic realities of Mexico of that era.

What makes this extra special is that Cleo is played by Yalitza Aparicio, a native Mexican woman, who not only has never acted before but is not an actor period. This is street casting done right. Aparicio feels real because she is real. She doesn’t need to rely on messers Stanislavski and Meisner to get into character, She is the character. She is also surrounded by a great supporting cast made up of both experienced actors and rookie performers. Also, in a movie that relies so heavily on children, it easy for a miscast actor to diminish the magic of a scene, but here the child actors are cast perfectly.

But more than anything else, Roma firmly establishes Alfonso Cuaron as one of the modern masters of the art of filmmaking. The cinematography is better than even Gravity and Children of Men. Every frame is perfectly composed. The camera movements are motivated by the emotions of the scene more than the narrative. Of course, there are long takes. And oh boy there are long takes. Beautifully staged, wonderfully crafted, awe-inspiring long takes. Then there is the sound design. Roma might be one of the most innovatively sound scaped movies of the last ten years. Cuaron immerses you into the auditory world of his film like few directors have in the past. In that, it is similar to Dunkirk, but whereas Nolan wanted to create a feeling of tension and unease, Cuaron wants to create a more intimate experience.

All of this makes Roma a unique experience. There is joy, there is humor, there is betrayal, and there is the tragedy. Even though it will soon be available on Netflix, Roma begs to be seen in the theatres.