‘Roma’ Is the Movie Alfonso Cuaron Has Been Working Towards His Whole Career

Alfonso Cuaron has spent a lot of time perfecting a lot of technique in order to become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and respected directors. He’s given us post-apocalyptic dystopia, Sandra Bullock DIY-ing her way home from space, and one of the two horniest Harry Potter movies on record. He has one Best Director Oscar on his mantle, and if you believe what you read on the Oscar blogs, he might want to clear up some space for a second. Along the way, he’s mastered uninterrupted tracking shots, fixed-position long takes, eerie silence, and chaotic noise; intimate character moments and sweeping social commentary.

Over the course of his 27-year career, Cuaron has amassed plenty inside his bag of tricks, and with Roma, the most personal, close-to-the-bone movie he’s ever made, he brings his entire arsenal to bear not on the end of the world or a trip home from space but on the life of a domestic worker in 1970s Mexico City, sacrificing her days, nights, and self in order to help raise a family that isn’t hers. It’s a feat of filmmaking that is so accomplished it borders on showing off — and at times its oversized ambition works against its objectives — but it’s also a deeply rewarding piece of filmmaking that is so good it feels out of place on Netflix. But that’s almost certainly where you’re going to watch it.

The challenges that come with watching Roma at home  — on your TV or your tablet or even, and I steady myself by gripping a nearby chair when I say this, your phone — are myriad, and it’s not just because the movie is black and white and features not just subtitles but two kinds of subtitles (to delineate between the Spanish spoken by the upper-class family and the Mixtec spoken by the nannies and other domestic help). But it’s also that Cuaron takes his time with this movie. Long, uninterrupted tracking shots or fixed-point long takes where the action slowly marches through the frame (often a literal march, as in a parade or a protest) are the defining visual signature of this movie. That requires patience of any audience raised on quick-cut modern American cinema. The requirements become Herculean when you’re at home with the lights on and the phone buzzing its alerts at you. That’s the trade-off for getting to watch the latest movie by one of the best filmmakers in the business without having to leave home: you have to work for it too.

The deliberate pace of the movie feels like it’s marking the slow but steady passage of time for its main character, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a domestic worker in Mexico City caring for an upper-middle-class family. The father, a doctor, is absent for much of the film, off at come “conference” in Quebec City. We come to realize that his relationship with the mother, Sofia, is crumbling, and by the end of the movie, he’s moved out. The stress this puts on the family — which includes four kids as well as Sofia’s mother — increases throughout the film. We’re introduced to Cleo’s life through her routine: mopping the patio, making the kids’ beds, fixing meals. Cuaron shows her day unfolding slowly and unremarkably. He also shows us just how much this family depends on her, even loves her. In one scene, Cleo pauses cleaning up to crouch down next to the family as they watch TV; one of the little boys puts an arm around her shoulder. What you desperately want as an audience member is the warm, happy feeling that Cleo is part of the family. She’s not.

Cuaron has faced some criticism — as much criticism as one can face when their film is the consensus critical pick for film of the year — that he’s idealizing the selfless domestic worker in a condescending and privileged way. As far as I can see, Roma seems well aware of the arm’s length at which Cleo finds herself with this family. She has sweet moments with the kids, yes; Sofia and her mother are there for her when she has a crisis. But that moment where the boy puts his arm around Cleo lasts for a few seconds before she’s asked to make tea for the father. Nothing is ideal for long.

The scenes with Cleo and the family are so well-built and effective that it becomes a bit frustrating when Cuaron’s scope moves too far beyond that. There are student protests in Mexico City at this point in history. Marching in the streets that threatens to become a riot. Cleo finds herself involved with a young man who takes part in the protests, and his aggression as he demonstrates his martial-arts fighting skills is first played for laughs (and a whole lot of male nudity) but later proves to be foreshadowing. Cuaron keeps pulling the camera back, from the protests to the wealthy Mexico City bourgeoisie who gather at their hunting lodges for the holidays. Nature intervenes in the form of an earthquake at one point, a fire the next. As idyllic as the scenes with the family are, Cuaron is very good at suggesting the danger stomping down the road. But the wider the story’s scope gets, the weaker Cuaron’s grasp on the audience is. The middle part of the movie sags under social commentary that feels too divorced from the characters to be effective. He’ll deliver a singular, utterly unforgettable visual — rubble from the earthquake lands on top of an incubator in the hospital but miraculously the baby stays safe inside; there’s  a sequence involving taxidermy that I do not want to spoil further — but too much of it feels like meandering. It’s not until the story returns to Cleo in an immediate and terrifying way that the film once again grabs you.

But it sure does grab you. The final 45 minutes or so are gripping, devastating, and ultimately heroic. They’re the work of a confident and accomplished filmmaker who’s worked his whole career to be able to put together scenes like that. Every technical element, from the cinematography and editing (both by Cuaron) to the sound mixing (the way he makes a marching crowd or the crashing waves at the beach sound nerve-rattlingly threatening will make you sit up and pay attention). It might all be a feat of technical prowess over everything if he didn’t also take such care with Cleo in the small moments. Her playing “dead” with one of the kids (“Hey. I like being dead”). A recurring gag about trying to park the family’s Ford Fairline in their too-narrow driveway. The aforementioned taxidermy and naked martial arts.

As quiet, deliberate, contemplative black-and-white memoirs go, this one has a lot of personality to it. And even as Cuaron wanders, through the politics and social orders of his native Mexico City, he always makes it back home.

Stream Roma on Netflix