Review of Y Tu Mamá También (2001) by Josh G — 19 Oct 2008

My reviews are generally pretty subjective, fairly opinionated. So let me just skip straight to the opinions and then I'll double back and provide you a short synopsis and maybe some more thoughts on the film:

My Opinion: I liked Y Tu Mama Tambien better than Solo Con Tu Pareja, Cuaron's first film. But I liked it less than Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's first film, Amores Perros. The reason I compare the two filmmakers work is that they are close friends (and along with Guillermo del Toro considered the pioneers of the "New Mexican" cinema), and both Inarritu's film and Cuaron's star Gael Garcia Bernal.

Y Tu Mama Tambien, on the surface, is a road movie about a couple of teenage boys who lie to an older woman about a hidden beach named 'Heaven's Mouth' to get her to run away with them. Along the way, they encounter the typical array of road movie cliches: car trouble, love triangles, atypical locals, all leading up to their arrival at their supposed destination.

But where this film differs from the typical road movie is in the depth of the characters. Although the film is about the physical journey the characters take, it is perhaps more about the intellectual one. Julio (Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) are teen-aged friends, and they act like teenagers. They are obsessed with sex (although inexperienced), they are immature jokesters, they can't understand their emotions. Luisa (Maribel Verdu) is an older woman: worn from her cheating husband and dead-end job, seeking an escapist fantasy with these two rebellious children.

Over the course of the film, Julio and Tenoch grow up while Luisa lets go.

All of this is with the aid of an omniscient narrator who adds splashes of solemnity to otherwise banal moments. When Tenoch lays his head against the window of the car, the sound cuts out and the narrator tells the viewer that he is thinking of a nanny he had when he was younger who came from near where they were travelling. The narrator mentions that Tenoch felt bad for never having been there before, but ends telling us that he never mentions that to his travel companions. Or as they round a corner in the mountains, the narrator intones that if they had passed that area two years prior, they would have seen a horrific accident that claimed the lives of a motorcyclist and several chickens.

In Solo Con tu Pareja, Cuaron never failed to show the divide between the upper-class characters of the movie and the poverty stricken country surrounding them; here likewise, the narrator keeps us keenly aware of the malaise that engulfs much of Mexico.

Y Tu Mama Tambien, like Cuaron's first film, is a sex comedy of sorts. There is comedy, and there is certainly a lot of sex. But even if you don't see it as an intelligent film, it's difficult to argue that it's not at the very least a thoughtful film. I think the moment that encapsulates the entire film comes when Julio and Tenoch sneak downstairs at their hotel after the first night to peek through Luisa's window. Through the fragmented and blurry glass, they see Luisa sobbing. It's a small moment, maybe. But for a moment, the trivial nature of their teenage rivalry and horniness is forgotten. They silently slink back to their shared room.

I don't think that it would be unfair to say that the sum of the movie's parts are greater than its whole. I don't think that that would be wrong at all.