See Roma, and see it on a big screen, and see it loud. Alfonso Cuarón’s first film since Gravity is decidedly less flashy—a semi-autobiographical drama, it’s set in the early 1970s and is almost entirely focused on Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a live-in housekeeper and nanny for an upper-class family in Mexico City. But while Roma’s smaller in scope, it can be as jaw-clenchingly intense as Gravity, as melancholy and humane as Y Tu Mamá También, and as viscerally overwhelming as Children of Men. Roma is Cuarón firing on all cylinders.
Which brings me back to the “see it big, see it loud” thing: Roma is being distributed by Netflix, and the only way most will be able to see it is by streaming it at home. But by the time its end credits roll, it’s clear Roma is about as powerful a cinematic experience as one can have.
