Rating- * * * * * (5/5)
As uncomfortable as it feels at times, Y Tu Mama Tambien is a film that is completely sure of itself unequivocal in its direction. Alfonso Cuaron’s teenage sexual odyssey never saw a release in American theaters because of its graphic sexual content but don’t be fooled into thinking this film is in any way pornographic. The story follows two best friends (Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal) find themselves bored when their girlfriends leave for Europe for the summer. When they meet an older woman (Ana Lopez Mercado) whose husband cheats on her, the woman tells the boys to take her to Heaven’s Mouth, a mythical private beach somewhere on the Pacific Coast. Along the way, the three of them discuss life, sex and many other things while in the background of their road trip we are subtly shown the ever increasing strife of the modern Mexican in the cities, on the farms and on the coasts. The film is shockingly and uncompromisingly true to life in almost every way; the dialogue, the visual style, the details about Mexico, and the sex scenes. I will say that the sex is abundant in this film as well as the discussion of it, mostly because of the fact that the two boys have been raised in a sex-obsessed culture and eagerly take part in that culture. However, in defense of the sex scenes, they are treated with complete honesty, unlike Hollywood sex scenes, and are not glamorized or eroticized whatsoever. They are usually shown from one angle and it’s never a close up. These are details that are not usually noticed by American filmgoers because we have been conditioned to seeing titillating, romanticized sex in movies that show us just enough to get excited and then break away to the next scene. What Cuaron does is infinitely more intelligent and real; he shows us real people with real lives and feelings and in this case, they have real sex. It’s not erotic, it’s not titillating, and it’s even a little unglamorous. We watch as these two young boys lose their illusions and obsessions about sex and watch as they grow into adults and are shown by this older woman what it is like to have adult feelings. But the great part is that the “coming of age” story is only one level of this film. There is entirely different level to this film that we kind of just see in passing about the decline of the Mexican economy and its devastating effects on the rural population of Mexico. Then there is the third level of the film, which is only glimpsed once or twice and then directly addressed at the end of the film. I won’t say what this level is about, but I will say that it concerns issues as fundamental as life and death and our appreciation of both. This is a masterfully made film with incredible depth and poignancy and for viewers mature enough to handle it, it is certainly an experience worth having.