It was okay, I guess. I wouldn't go far as to call it the film of the year. It was like a lot of foreign films I've seen.
Cleo is a servant to an upstanding Mexican family in 1970. One day she discovers she is pregnant from when she was with her fellow servant's cousin. When she tells him, he bolts, leaving her all alone with the fear of being fired from her job.
Mrs. Sofi promises that she won't fire her. In fact, she has problems of her own. Her husband went to Quebec to conduct research, and he hasn't been back since. It turns out he had a mistress in town and never left.
Much of the movie is just what Cleo sees throughout a year in her life. She helps the children get ready for school. She constantly sweeps up dog poop. She gets to go with the family she works for to their New Years celebration.
Cleo tries to reconnect with Ferim, the father of her child, and she finds him at his martial arts session where they're being trained by a famous daredevil. The daredevil started with putting his leg on his calf, his arms together over his head, and he was blindfolded the whole time. He says it's rarely feated by athletes. While the students and spectators were trying to do the same, we see that Cleo could easily do that. She finally meets with Fermin, but he threatens to beat the child out of her if she ever came around again.
Later, when Cleo is close to giving birth, she and the Abuela of the family go to look at cribs for the baby when the student protest gets violent outside and moves into the store. One of the protestors was Fermin. Right at that moment, as he runs away, Cleo's water breaks. She and Abuela get stuck in traffic while she suffers from her contractions. When she finally gets to the hospital, she gives birth to a stillborn baby.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sofi sells the family Galaxy for a smaller car and plans a goodbye trip of the Galaxy. They invite Cleo along as well, and it's a good thing they did. While Mrs. Sofi was prepping the car at the beach, two of the four children were playing in the ocean and get sucked under a rip current. Cleo, who has no idea how to swim, jumps in and pulls them out. Cleo weeps that she wished her baby dead, but they family comforts her and tell her they love her.
They drive home to find all the bookcases gone because the father moved out. Before the whole ocean debacle, Mrs. Sofi tells the kids that she is divorcing the dad, and he's taking his clothes, books, bookcases, anything that was his. So they go home to find the house rearranged and Cleo goes to do laundry.
I have one question. I don't know why this movie is called Roma. There is no indication that connects to the title. According to Wikipedia, the movie is a semi-autobiography based on Alfonso Cuarón and his upbringing in the Colonia Roma district in Mexico City. That makes sense except not many of us understand the geography of Mexico City let alone never been to Mexico City. The people of Mexico City, at least 8 million people, would probably catch that. Maybe the majority of Mexico, maybe a few people scattered across the globe.
I will give it a mention for good cinematography. Director Cuarón really seemed to like the long panning/tracking shots.
The black and white filter was a good choice. To me, it allows us to not be distracted and really see the world around Cleo. It wasn't a bright cheerful world she was living in. Even the marriage that was going on nearby, when the family is sadly eating their ice cream, is a little ironic. They are sad, and boisterous mariachi music is playing in the background with a large group of people dancing.
Fermin not going back to Cleo when she was dangerously pregnant made sense. The father will not always go back to be with the mother. He was especially crazy in this movie with his obsession for martial arts. He is the type of guy who wouldn't ever go to be with the mother of his child; he wants nothing to do with the child. And it doesn't matter because the baby was born dead. He doesn't go see how she is doing after giving birth because he doesn't care. That isn't something we see in American films a lot. If we did, it gets trashed on the Internet, becomes Rotten and forgotten.
So, I guess this movie is better than I thought. It deserves to win Best Picture. Look at the other nominees. We got a biopic that took for-f*cking-ever to make, a film about a friendship that's apparently full of sh*t, a period drama starring Academy Award winner Emma Stone, a Spike Lee joint where Eric Forman is the bad guy, an Adam McKay movie that should win but won't, the Godfather of superhero movies, and Lady Gaga in the worst love story in the history of cinema (If it were any good, it wouldn't have been remade four times). Roma didn't try very hard to get you to like it. It's a Netflix film that's GOOD! After a string of commercial and critical failures (True Confessions of an International Assassin, any movie starring Adam Sandler, Bird Box), suddenly there's a hit that's not a TV show. It's time. They did it. Just give it to 'em.
Released On: November 21, 2018
Rating: R
Stars: Yalitza Aparicio, Marin de Tavira
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.9/10
Awards
Academy Awards
Golden Globe Awards
(Click here to view more awards for "Roma".)
Cleo is a servant to an upstanding Mexican family in 1970. One day she discovers she is pregnant from when she was with her fellow servant's cousin. When she tells him, he bolts, leaving her all alone with the fear of being fired from her job.
Mrs. Sofi promises that she won't fire her. In fact, she has problems of her own. Her husband went to Quebec to conduct research, and he hasn't been back since. It turns out he had a mistress in town and never left.
Much of the movie is just what Cleo sees throughout a year in her life. She helps the children get ready for school. She constantly sweeps up dog poop. She gets to go with the family she works for to their New Years celebration.
Cleo tries to reconnect with Ferim, the father of her child, and she finds him at his martial arts session where they're being trained by a famous daredevil. The daredevil started with putting his leg on his calf, his arms together over his head, and he was blindfolded the whole time. He says it's rarely feated by athletes. While the students and spectators were trying to do the same, we see that Cleo could easily do that. She finally meets with Fermin, but he threatens to beat the child out of her if she ever came around again.
Later, when Cleo is close to giving birth, she and the Abuela of the family go to look at cribs for the baby when the student protest gets violent outside and moves into the store. One of the protestors was Fermin. Right at that moment, as he runs away, Cleo's water breaks. She and Abuela get stuck in traffic while she suffers from her contractions. When she finally gets to the hospital, she gives birth to a stillborn baby.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sofi sells the family Galaxy for a smaller car and plans a goodbye trip of the Galaxy. They invite Cleo along as well, and it's a good thing they did. While Mrs. Sofi was prepping the car at the beach, two of the four children were playing in the ocean and get sucked under a rip current. Cleo, who has no idea how to swim, jumps in and pulls them out. Cleo weeps that she wished her baby dead, but they family comforts her and tell her they love her.
They drive home to find all the bookcases gone because the father moved out. Before the whole ocean debacle, Mrs. Sofi tells the kids that she is divorcing the dad, and he's taking his clothes, books, bookcases, anything that was his. So they go home to find the house rearranged and Cleo goes to do laundry.
I have one question. I don't know why this movie is called Roma. There is no indication that connects to the title. According to Wikipedia, the movie is a semi-autobiography based on Alfonso Cuarón and his upbringing in the Colonia Roma district in Mexico City. That makes sense except not many of us understand the geography of Mexico City let alone never been to Mexico City. The people of Mexico City, at least 8 million people, would probably catch that. Maybe the majority of Mexico, maybe a few people scattered across the globe.
I will give it a mention for good cinematography. Director Cuarón really seemed to like the long panning/tracking shots.
The black and white filter was a good choice. To me, it allows us to not be distracted and really see the world around Cleo. It wasn't a bright cheerful world she was living in. Even the marriage that was going on nearby, when the family is sadly eating their ice cream, is a little ironic. They are sad, and boisterous mariachi music is playing in the background with a large group of people dancing.
Fermin not going back to Cleo when she was dangerously pregnant made sense. The father will not always go back to be with the mother. He was especially crazy in this movie with his obsession for martial arts. He is the type of guy who wouldn't ever go to be with the mother of his child; he wants nothing to do with the child. And it doesn't matter because the baby was born dead. He doesn't go see how she is doing after giving birth because he doesn't care. That isn't something we see in American films a lot. If we did, it gets trashed on the Internet, becomes Rotten and forgotten.
So, I guess this movie is better than I thought. It deserves to win Best Picture. Look at the other nominees. We got a biopic that took for-f*cking-ever to make, a film about a friendship that's apparently full of sh*t, a period drama starring Academy Award winner Emma Stone, a Spike Lee joint where Eric Forman is the bad guy, an Adam McKay movie that should win but won't, the Godfather of superhero movies, and Lady Gaga in the worst love story in the history of cinema (If it were any good, it wouldn't have been remade four times). Roma didn't try very hard to get you to like it. It's a Netflix film that's GOOD! After a string of commercial and critical failures (True Confessions of an International Assassin, any movie starring Adam Sandler, Bird Box), suddenly there's a hit that's not a TV show. It's time. They did it. Just give it to 'em.
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Released On: November 21, 2018
Rating: R
Stars: Yalitza Aparicio, Marin de Tavira
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.9/10
Awards
Academy Awards
- Best Picture - Nominated
- Best Director Alfonso Cuarón - Winner
- Best Actress Yalitza Aparicio - Nominated
- Best Supporting Actress Marin de Tavira - Nominated
- Best Original Screenplay Alfonso Cuarón - Nominated
- Best Foreign Language Film - Winner
- Best Cinematography Alfonso Cuarón - Winner
- Best Production Design Eugenio Cabellero & Bárbara Enríquez - Nominated
- Best Sound Editing Sergio Díaz & Skip Lievsay - Nominated
- Best Sound Mixing Skip Lievsay, Craig Henighan & José Antonio García - Nominated
Golden Globe Awards
- Best Foreign Language Film - Winner
- Best Director Alfonso Cuarón -Winner
- Best Screenplay Alfonso Cuarón - Nominated
(Click here to view more awards for "Roma".)
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