One of the Most Devastating Parts of ‘ROMA’ Is the Dog Poop

There are many reasons why Alfonso Cuarón‘s latest film is a cinematic masterpiece, reasons that will be better dissected by critics and academics who are far smarter than me. But while I was watching Cleo’s (Yalitza Aparicio) heart-wrenching story about being a near-silent background player in her own life, there was one element that consistently embodied ROMA‘s rising anxiety: all of that dog poop.

In fact, that’s exactly how ROMA‘s story begins, with dog poop. The first few minutes of the film chronicle Cleo as she quietly washes and scrubs her employer’s enclosed driveway. This driveway is where they keep the family dog, and when that dog needs to do its business, that’s where it happens. Watching the steadfast and often timid Cleo, played beautifully by Aparicio, throw water on this feces and sweep it away is our first look into how thankless and under-appreciated she is, both on a professional level and in life. As the movie cruelly proves, the middle-class family she works for doesn’t love or support her in the way she deserves and neither does anyone else. She’s valued even less than their dog. Still, she wordlessly cleans up the shit life has dealt her.

But it’s when that shit literally piles up that things go south. In the first third of the movie, all of the scenes with the father of the household play out in roughly the same way. Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) comes home, sees dog poop in the driveway, spots a million other imperfections in his home, yells at everyone, and leaves. It’s only when he leaves for good that the poop piles become more prevalent. It’s a visual reminder that both Cleo and the later divorced Sofia (Marina de Tavira) are losing what little control they have over their own lives.

And that’s why it’s so anxiety-inducing. Prior to Antonio leaving his family for good, every time the camera pans to another sickly black grouping of excrement it foreshadows something sinister. It’s only later that we realize that sinister something is Antonio abandoning the family that needs him. No matter what these women do, it will never be enough for the toxic, demanding men who run their lives.

When it remains after his departure, it’s equally chilling. It’s a noticeable symbol of decay and uncaring. And yet these women have been too broken to even take care of this basic outward symbol of disarray.

At the end of the film, after the turmoil of Sofia’s broken marriage, a heartless betrayal by Cleo’s boyfriend, and a devastating miscarriage that drains her, the menial chore the poop represents still remains. Cleo, for all of the kind words from her employer and all the sweetness of their beach vacation, still is not part of this family, nor will she ever be. Instead she’s forced to pick up the pieces of a life she’s part of but is never truly hers, cleaning sheets and washing away excrement. That’s how ROMA ends, and that, the film implies, is how it will always be.

Watch ROMA on Netflix