Roma (2018) is a beautiful film, yes? But Cleo, the family maid and nanny, labors like a dog throughout—“Clean up the shit”—and the film ultimately buries that exploitative relation in sentimentality, that is, through the familiar bourgeois lesson that the maid, too, is one of the family. Even the sisterhood that comes when Cleo’s boss’ husband leaves the family—“All women are alone”—is part of that strategy. So I think one has to ask whether Roma’s unobtrusive camera eye on Mexican daily life sacrifices class critique for family romance (director Cuarón’s, if not Cleo’s).
STEVEN WEXLER 