Roma

— Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” is a remembrance of his own life growing up in Mexico City in the early ‘70s. Focusing on a middle-class family—a doctor, his biochemist wife who takes care of the home, their four children and two servants—the story is told from the perspective of one of the servants, Cleo, who is also the nanny. It's an interesting story in its own way, but it is the feel of the film that stays with you. The scenes are more like carefully staged tableaux than moving images, in photo-like black and white with clean lines and a crispness that’s hard to describe. None of the characters are really fully formed, or at least we aren’t privy to their past and the experiences that make them what they are, but while being a little unsatisfying, it also adds a murkiness of sort to the feeling of recollection. For a while it seems like nothing more than a beautiful and interesting slice of life but eventually a parallel becomes clear, between the mother’s life and Cleo’s life, where both women are abandoned by their men and need to move forward with their lives. This is an incredible film from an artistic perspective, but I wish we could have lived inside the characters a little more. Even so, it’s a lovingly, carefully crafted work of art. (In theaters and streaming on Netflix.)

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[2018. 135 min. Written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Starring Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, and Carlos Peralta.]
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/roma-2018