4/5
Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is an astonishing technical achievement that is beautiful to look at, has an impressive sound design, features lovely performances, includes several nice moments… and yet it leaves me cold. Unlike other memory films that attempt to evoke a sense of time and place rather than character, this film is so firmly centered in the story of Cleo, the family’s live-in maid and nanny, that all of the background episodes are incidental to her story. Yet Cuarón’s insistence on keeping us at a distance from Cleo in the film’s gorgeous wide, panning shots keeps us from fully engaging with her narrative – they’re packed to edges of the screen with so much obsessive detail that Cleo is frequently lost. And there is a sentimentality, a rose-colored view on the family’s dynamic with Cleo that still doesn’t quite sit right – even after multiple viewings. Even though the family (and the film itself) gives lip service to the idea that Cleo is part of the extended family, there is a fundamental classism to the way that she is treated by every member of the family. A more self-aware film would have at least one moment to reflect on this, but Cuarón is so awash in this sentimental view of the dynamic between Cleo and the family that any class inquiries are quickly brushed aside. Still, he allows the camera to stop and focus on Cleo’s face for more than a moment, when his panning camera works in service to the story rather than as a technical gimmick, the film soars and you can see a master filmmaker at the top of his craft.
