2019 Winner, Roma

Roma

Director:  Alfonso Cuarón

Distributed by: Netflix

Released: November 2018

Country:  Mexico

I was thinkin' that maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby for her to stay
Just someone to keep my house clean
Fix my meals and go away

--A Man Needs a Maid, Neil Young

Being a live-in maid seems like a pretty thankless job—I know I couldn’t do it.  First of all, I’m a slob, so my method of cleaning would be a lot of peering into rooms and saying, “Good enough.”  Also, when I cook I do a lot of tasting, so I think my employer would end up having to deduct from my paycheck to compensate for the free food.  But more importantly, it must be difficult in terms of getting attached to the family you work for, as it is for Cleo, in the Mexican Best Foreign Film of 2018, Roma.

Roma is the story of one maid, named Cleo, in an upper-middle class neighborhood in Mexico City. Cleo works for a family with small children, with the husband, a noted doctor, being mostly absent, and his wife Sofia resenting him for it.  Cleo isn’t particularly pretty or smart, but she works hard and clearly cares about the kids.  She is part of their lives and part of the family.

 

The film originates from the mind of Alfonso Cuarón, who is telling the story of his maid as he was

Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo;
Marina de Tavira as Sofia, her employer

growing up in Mexico.  Cuarón is best known to American audiences for his visually stunning but light-on-plot film Gravity from 2013.  Roma is a little more character-driven than that film, but as far as the aesthetics go, I found the film to be too cute by half.  The movie is in black-and-white, and I'm not sure why.  It made things seem more dated than the 1970 Mexico that is its setting.  Also, Cuarón goes a bit Kubrick from time to time, with long, long shots of nothing happening.  Sometimes this can be visually interesting, like the shot of the family garage’s floor during the opening credits.  But too often I found myself yelling a Monty Python-ish “Get on with it!”

There isn’t much plot in Roma, but there doesn’t need to be.  Cleo is a likeable character who shows strength and forbearance despite the challenges thrown at her, and you can’t help but root for her.  And when she sees dog poop on the garage floor, she cleans it up and doesn’t say, “Good enough.”

Cleo and the family

The Title:  Roma is the neighborhood in Mexico City, somewhat upscale but on the decline in 1970, when this movie is set.  The area is now a sort-of trendy hipster place, with art galleries and restaurants.

Culture:  The story takes place during a period of political stress in Mexico, and the latter portion of the film includes rioting that took place in the early 1970’s.  Cleo has a relationship with an unemployed dimwit who has been training with Los Halcones, a quasi-military group who thuggishly kept the peace for the government by using kung-fu moves and by using violence in general.

My dog and I could have used Cleo recently

More interesting is Cuarón’s pop culture references.  The movie features a variety of Mexican pop songs that were popular at the time, and we learn that even in Mexico, folks were putting Jesus Christ Superstar on their turntables.   But what comes through most is Cuarón’s love of the movies.  Two key scenes occur at movie theaters, as Cleo and her boyfriend take in  La Grande Vadrouille, a popular 1966 French comedy; and with the kids she sees Marooned, a 1969 American drama about astronauts.  Both movies feature an abandonment of one sort or another, (and one of the astronauts has a suspicious and odd resemblance to George Clooney, who starred in Gravity for Cuarón a few years ago).

Agenda danger:  Speaking of the theme of abandonment, Roma features two male characters that heinously abandon their families.  Men don’t come out looking too good in this film, seemingly incapable of fulfilling their paternal responsibilities.  Perhaps this is why, after all, a man needs a maid.

Best Picture that year:  Green Book

Rating:  For all the hype, with Cuarón winning Best Director and the film itself nominated for Best Picture (and the movie also won for Best Cinematography), I was a little underwhelmed.  But there was a charm to characters, the female ones anyway, that made it worth watching.  And if you have Netflix, this one is something you should make time for.