Roma (2018)

I wanted to watch Alfonso Cuarón's Roma back in December when it released on Netflix but the length put me off. Then it got 10 Oscar nominations and, despite the Academy once again embarrassing themselves with awful nominations and jaw-dropping snubs and people mentioning how boring the movie is, I decided to give it a shot. 

The film is set in early 1970s Mexico —Roma is a neighbourhood in Mexico City if you are wondering where the title came from— and follows a year in the life of a maid, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), and the middle-class family she works for.

As you probably guessed, Roma doesn't have much of a story as it's a sequence of episodes that affects its characters in different ways, mainly the maid. The problem is that every single event falls flat —everytime you think drama is about to be delivered, nothing but a disappointment comes—, it is uninteresting, fails to captivate you but succeeds in boring you to death.

Another issue with Roma's story is that Cuarón decided to include some Mexican historical events but they are just thrown in there and, if you don't know anything about Mexico's history, you won't understand what is going on and why. Why are people rioting in the streets? What's the story behind the tension between landowners and labourers? If Cuarón made a historical movie and added his personal story in it instead of the other way around, Roma would have worked much better and would have been more compelling.

Of course, the film could have worked this way too, but the characters in Roma are just too thin, too underdeveloped, they lack complexity. In other words, they are flat and you never really connect with any of them, nor care about them.

As for the acting, it easily is the most overrated aspect of the film. Yalitza Aparicio gives one of the most wooden performances of the year, and the only thought of her being nominated and probably winning the Oscar and Toni Collette, whose performance in Hereditary was one of the most powerful in recent years, being snubbed, angers me. Marina de Tavira's performance is a bit better than Aparicio's but it still isn't Oscar-worthy.

Netflix

Roma has a redeeming quality though. The black and white cinematography is gorgeous and captivating and makes the film look like a piece of art you would see in a museum. Stunning visuals are pretty useless when the film is damn boring though, and Roma is just that, a long, slowly paced, unengaging, tedious film that often gives you the vibe of a telenovela.