Review of Y Tu Mamá También (2001) by Patrick M — 02 Sep 2013

"The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex".

-Hugh Hefner.

We could live without religion, but not without sex. Still, if seen as the most important thing to do in our lives, we become no different than animals. While the importance of reproduction is undeniable, we cannot let it distract us from other beautiful things in life.

"Y Tu Mama Tambien" is about two best friends (Diego Luna & Gael Garcia Bernal) who go on a road trip accompanied by an older woman named Luisa (Maribel Verdu) looking to seduce her. Don't let the porn film description fool you, it's one of the most thoughtful movies on adolescence you'll ever find.

Few movies give me the feeling I get when watching "Y Tu Mama Tambien", something indescribable I get when watching Hal Ashby movies or any kind of movie with the ability to leave a viewer profoundly touched. The natural camerawork and ambience is something really hard to find, it's usually found in Lars Von Trier's earlier work, or Dogme 95 movies in general, yet the cinematography in this film is undoubtedly much better and easier on the eyes.

In a way, "Y Tu Mama Tambien" could be seen as a polar opposite movie to "Children of Men", while they're both movies with themes about sex, one sees it as fun and the other sees it as a necessity. The characters in this film are only doing it for pleasure, it's what they want the most and probably the only thing they think about, it's a journey about finding ourselves and the things that make us human.

I also love the narration, it makes the movie feel a lot more intimate than it already is from the opening scene (when we see one of our main protagonist's having sex with his girlfriend) by letting us know personal details of every single character. It's hard to make a sex scene easy to watch and even funny, it's usually shots of legs and some other body parts, but here we see our characters from an original point of view. It looks awkward, its never what they want it to be, which is one of the aspects that makes the film so unique.

It's not only a good film, it gets much better when revisited, the characters feel like good people to hang around with, making it what I'd say is my favorite "hangout movie".

I'd recommend it to anyone who liked movies similar to "The Kids are All Right", "The Descendants", "Dazed and Confused", "Rudo y Cursi", "Jules et Jim", "Harold and Maude", and/or "Boogie Nights". Go see it if you haven't already, it's one of the best Mexico has to offer (and my personal favorite).

*spoiler alert* By the way, in the last scene, the narrator lets us know that the two best friends will never speak to each other ever again. Why do you think that is? Because of them having slept with each others girlfriends or because of the awkwardness of knowing they had a threesome?