'Roma' A Review

Roma is a drama about a maid in Mexico City in the early 1970's. The film takes place, roughly, over a year following Cleo(Yalitza Aparicio) as she cares for the household and four children of Sofia(Marina de Tavira). Shot in a rich black and white with alternatively graceful and thrilling long lived-in takes typical to writer/director Alfonso Cuarón the film takes a small story and shows it in all the wonder and heartbreak, all the grandeur and pain, that humanity offers at its most pure. Although produced and released on Netflix this is a film that unequivocally deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Newcomer Aparicio gives a masterful performance. She is on screen almost the entire film and carrie that weigh with an effortlessness that is captivating. She is totally emotionally available and not only in times of joy or despair but in every little flicker in between. We are with her on this journey, find the pleasure and boredom and frustration in the mundane day-to-day chores and activities. And we are with her seeing and feeling with her as she struggles with bigger challenges. There are so many stand-out scenes in the film to list them would be to simply recount it but there is one moment when Cleo is celebrating New Years toasting with a friend where she is bumped and her drink spills that is so powerful and so true to describe it as stunning would be an understatement. The honesty of her performance is captivating and unique, its not totally rare that an unknown non-actor gives a star, but it is rare that one gives such an dynamic, emphatic, almost mythic but at the same time totally human performance. The supporting cast are filled with amazing performances capturing life with all its complexities and humor and occasional darkness but none of them would work without Aparicio at the center. She grounds the story in the real but at the same time(with the assistance of the stunning camera work) elevate it to the divine.

The cinematography, no surprise from Cuarón, is breathtaking. Paired expertly and homogeneously with the lead performance the visuals give us what would appear to be mundane things- cleaning, laundry, long tracking shots of two friends walking down the street, a couple kissing at a movie theater- but with such patience and detail the richness, the reality, and the beauty are undeniable. The score is more subtle but equally evocative with a couple well placed and poignant diegetic moments and with an layered and immersive soundscape, in the theater at least utilizing surround sound more expertly than any experience I can recall.

The story and themes are simple but run deep. The story is small, a year in the life of a maid in a particular time, but what its really about is the glory and tragedy of the human experience. The themes are far reaching- sexual politics, gender disparity, class, race- you name it. As with real life the narrative touches on many things but its investigation of these themes is gentle, almost reverent. The lead is a maid and that is not ignored- her indigenous background, her poverty or circumstance-but her position is not the focal point, the film doesn't bludgeon or burden us with preaching, pontification, or flagellation. We see a life, a beautiful, complicated, layered life. The hardships aren't ignored they are accepted as reality, and given that, how can one transcend is the question. And that, ultimately, is what the film is about- transcendence.

In our age of turmoil where despair and hate are close Roma trumpets hope and grace and celebrates that thing we all share- being human.

Don't Miss It.