Today’s Prayer Focus
MOVIE REVIEW

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Reviewed by: Jim O'Neill
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Extremely Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults
Genre: Foreign / Romance
Length: 1 hr. 45 min.
Year of Release: 2002
USA Release:
Featuring Maribel Verdu
Gael García Bernal
Diego Luna
Diana Bracho
Daniel Gimenez Cacho
Director Alfonso Cuaron
Producer Amy J. Kaufman
Jorge Vergara
Distributor IFC Films

“Y Tu Mama Tambien” (And Your Mother Too), a Mexican film written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron (“Love in the Time of Hysteria”, “Great Expectations”), tells the story of the dissolution of a friendship between two seventeen year old boys. It’s a good story, and a well-told one, but the director loses his way in several spots by trying to throw too many ingredients into his stew. Some of his flavors excite and inspire; too many others overpower and distract.

“Y Tu Mama Tambien” has elements of the teen romance, the gross out comedy, the coming of age rhapsody, the road as discovery journey, the political cautionary tale, the homage to other film directors… I could keep going, but I think you get the point. Parts of the film have a soft chamber piece feel to them; others are loud and discordant, like cymbals crashing in the middle of a sonata. Cuaron too often goes for the heavy handed approach when a softer touch would get the point across just as well.

Cuaron pays homage to Orson Welles and to Francois Truffaut. He copies the famous tracking shot from the opening of Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”. I couldn’t tell if it was meant as a homage to Welles or as a joke. Maybe he tossed it in because Welles’ movie took place in Mexico, but although the countries were the same in both movies the dramatic settings could not be more different. He uses a Truffaut trademark, the detached voice over narration which accompanies the action, but Truffaut’s narration (“The 400 Blows”, “Jules and Jim”) gave insight into the emotions and anxieties of his principal characters, highlighting the limitations of human dialogue and the alienation of the individual from his surroundings. Cuaron takes the same technique a bit too far. We do get some glimpses into the characters’ lives, but we also get a lot of muddled political and social commentary, details about minor characters that add little to the central story, and lots of local color.

Julio (Gael García Bernal of “Amores Perros”) is a teenager who with his single mother in a tenement in a working class section of Mexico City. His best friend, Tenoch (Diego Luna) lives in comfortable affluence in the suburbs, thanks to his father’s connections with members of Mexico’s ruling class. The friendship between the two boys would seem improbable based on their class differences, but their alienation from their respective societies binds them. The glue that maintains that bond is the boys’ consuming preoccupation with sex. They both display a kind of sportsmanlike devotion to their libidos competing with each other for conquests as well as applauding each others’ victories. They are a modern day, prep school version of the aging alumni of “Carnal Knowledge.”

At a family wedding, Tenoch and Julio meet Luisa (Maribel Verdi), the lonesome and alluring wife of Tenoch’s cousin. Their clumsy attempts at seducing her look more like a playful scrimmage between buddies than an actual attempt to lure Luisa. She seems more amused by their flirtations than charmed by them. Julio and Tenoch devise a scheme to rescue her from her failing marriage by offering to carry her off to a beach they call “Heaven’s Mouth.” Such a beach doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t matter to Julio and Tenoch. It doesn’t much phase Luisa either when it becomes obvious that the boys don’t know where they are going. All three seem to undergo most of life’s journeys with no plans, no directions, and no guiding philosophy.

Julio and Tenoch discover that Luisa is no easy conquest. The wounded and victimized lady in distress soon turns mercurial and domineering. Her selfishness is monumental. In comparison, the boys’ narcissism is mere child’s play. The boys believe that they are taking her for a ride, but it is Luisa who does most of the steering. She puts up a good front for them so they can’t see beyond her cool, commanding exterior. Only when it is too late do they see the unfolding tragedy that lies underneath her bonhomie. The boys realize their goal when they have sex with Luisa, but it becomes the turning point in their adolescent game. It is Luisa who seduces both boys, with techniques that are awkward, condescending and cruel. Their unrelenting pursuit of sexual pleasure has led them down an unexpected dark road, one that has an unrewarding and unpleasant end.

Unlike other movies in which sexual indulgence is celebrated, “Y Tu Mama Tambien” reveals that pleasure without limits has a price. Compare such an idea with its opposites in several recent American films. “Forty Days and Forty Nights” has a title and an advertising campaign that fools the viewer into believing that the film applauds restraint. In essence, it mocks it. The independent film, “Kissing Jessica Stein” portrays sexual experimentation as a self-awakening experience with mostly good consequences. The current Broadway stage production of the 1967 film, “The Graduate” has brought the ideals of the sexual revolution full circle. The playwright has added a happy, and embarrassingly sappy, ending onto Mike Nichol’s original ambiguous finale. All of these works adhere strictly to the Hollywood edict of unbounded sexual freedom. And each work is a bad one. They are ultimately unsatisfying because their conflicts are superficial and their insights are stilted.

I don’t believe for a moment that Cuaron objects to sexual freedom. His film is full of it. There is graphic sex, abundant nudity, casual adultery, masturbation and homosexuality. Cuaron’s Mexico City looks like a modern day Gomorrah whose stony white modernity burns under a glaring sun. For all his comments on political and social injustice, there is no mention made of the legal significance (let alone the morality) of a sexual relationship between an adult woman and two underage boys. Luisa is celebrated as a free spirit who discovers her true self when she breaks free of her marital chains. She strides along the beach and glides through the water, a vessel of serenity and naturalism which under the glaze suffers a lost soul in a state of rapid moral and physical decline. It’s hard not to feel something for her. And for the two boys. Their decay is made palpable by the distance that grows between them, and by how that distance changes their outlook on life.


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Positive—Having just seen the film, I find myself in broad agreement with the reviewer’s opinions. That said, I thought the balance of power between Luisa and the boys was far more subtle than is suggested here—the boys are by no means the hapless victims; nor is Luisa entirely heartless—and the issue of underage sex is spurious, as the boys are clearly over the age of consent. The label of extreme offensiveness is also somewhat misleading, as the film certainly doesn’t go out of its way to shock in a ribald way: it merely reflects all too common contemporary lifestyles and language. I would be far more concerned that the viewer might be tempted into lust during some of the sex scenes, although the film did not often set out to manipulate the audience in this way (certainly not compared with many so-called “family” movies). In fact, with the notable exception of one shot, in which Maribel Verdi sensuously dances toward the camera, most of the “eroticism” is harsh, cold and distinctly un-erotic. In conclusion, the film has nothing particularly to edify the Christian, but, as with all of these ennuied, existentialist pictures, it serves as a timely reminder of the contradictions and futility inherent in a Christ-less world view.
My Ratings: [Average / 4]
Tim Wilson, age 23
Positive—I don’t know what to take as being more offensive… the harsh words spoken in the movie at times or that review you just gave! Yes, the movie deals with various themes and counter points but so what? It’s well composed, and I don’t think most people go to the movies to add and subtract the different elements. Like a good piece of music, it is well composed. Perhaps is not the most family oriented film around but I think your review is way off base, so much that I don’t even want to go into it.
My Ratings: [Average / 5]
Christian, age 26
Positive—I saw this with a movie group I meet with about every three weeks in Washington, DC. Six of us went and had different opinions. I was in the subgroup that was glad to see it but would not want to see it again. The two main characters are quite annoying through the first half of the film, then just pathetic through the second. I did find the character of Luisa as a very tough, very strong woman character, which I liked. Seeing her manipulate the boys seemed appropriate given their behavior.

The sex scenes in the film (the very first scene is of one of the boys and his girlfriend naked above the covers and fornicating quite athletically) are graphic, which I did not mind. There is going to be sex in movies and I find it refreshing to see it filmed in an ordinary and unglamorous way rather than the slick Hollywood way. This is what is looks like when people have sex, not what you see in “Monsters Ball” or some daytime soap. The movie is worth seeing because the emotional trip the three main characters take is impressively acted and directed. But you’re probably not going to want to see it again and you will probably be offended.
My Ratings: [Very Offensive / 3½]
Kevin Rowan, age 36