Review of Roma (2018) by Marcelo A — 24 Dec 2018

At first glance, "Roma" looks like an endless 2h15min movie where nothing happens. But it is in the drama of life that lies the strength of the new film by Alfonso Cuaron.

In the one-year history of the life of a middle-class Mexican family, Cuarón was able to grasp and understand that the essence of everything is in the details. She is in the expansive pain of Sofia (Marina de Tavira), whose husband changed her by the lover leaving her alone to take care of the four children. Or she is in the silent pain of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young housekeeper who finds herself involved in a problem when she becomes pregnant with a man who has just used her.

The journey of love, care, pain and respect unites Sofia and Cleo, mistress and maid, worlds so different, fragments of their families that unite to maintain sanity while following the course of this often painful walk that we know as life.

From the beginning Cuarón breaks the signs of this story to show the union of two women so different that they try, in a certain way, to find forces in each other as they deal with the absence and inoperability of their garbage men who left behind.

"You're always alone," Sofia warned, at a gutter moment when she got home drunk and crashed the huge car across the walls of the narrow garage of the family home. A clear contrast to her husband's caring at the same time he did not show the same zeal with his own family.

In a time of great success in the work of Elena Ferrante, the tetralogy that begins to come alive with the HBO series and tells a story of empathy and rivalry between two friends, "Roma" is also a story of two women so different they need support to maintain sanity. Although in this work there are not moments of rivalry, but the pain of each one that crosses the other and that empathizes on both sides.

When it is expected that the film is going to show the difficulties of the maid in the face of the lack of compassion of the bosses, Cuarón shows that its film will go by another slope. It is in the reception of the mistress in front of the employee who is afraid of losing her job when she discovers that she is pregnant, which strengthens the relationship of these two women.

Cleo's journey, however, is nevertheless the most interesting. As much as she feels embedded in that family, that is never her family. When you walk through the house, your steps are marked, your eyes are self-guarded, your discomfort is evident, because your home is not your home. She just feels comfortable with her sister.

Maybe that's why she tried to find a love like her sister. And the association with Fermin (Jorge Antônio Guerreiro) was the worst possible, as he turns out to be someone who is not trustworthy in every respect.

Cleo also finds herself in a deep discomfort with her pregnancy. She does not like it, guilt only consumes it. And only the sea cleanses her soul to the point of finally letting it out, in the midst of tears, how unwanted that son was.

"Roma" has a huge force, but it's not an easy movie. There are many slow scenes where nothing but life happens. But there is a lot of beauty in Cuarón's work. And in this journey of life, with different turning points, deep marks and the need for resignifications is that "Roma" is so great.