“A great movie is never just about its story. It’s about how that story is told, and particularly how it’s seen by the audience.” This is how Vox’s Alissa Wilkinson started her very insightful and tender review of Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón's latest film, “Roma.”
But more importantly to me is that the film’s producer, Netflix, will only be showing this film in the theatre in a very small amount of theaters for a very limited run before it is streamed on your phone, laptop, or tablet days after its theatrical release.
But a film like this needs to be seen on the big screen, and lucky for you, it is going to be running at
Celebration Cinema Woodland.
Cuarón, known for his immersive experience films like “Children of Men” and “Gravity,” has become a bit of a filmmaker’s filmmaker for his ability to take subject matter that could just be a rote exercise in filming in anyone else’s hands and, through his tender abilities, elevate the material to an instant classic.
With “Roma,” the auteur’s most personal film to date, Cuarón reaches back in his own life to pull forward a piece from his childhood. (More on that in the review link at the bottom)
From Woodland's site: "A vivid portrayal of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil, ROMA follows a young domestic worker Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) from Mixteco heritage descent and her co-worker Adela (Nancy García García), also Mixteco, who work for a small family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma. Mother of four, Sofia (Marina de Tavira), copes with the extended absence of her husband, Cleo faces her own devastating news that threatens to distract her from caring for Sofia’s children, whom she loves as her own. While trying to construct a new sense of love and solidarity in a context of a social hierarchy where class and race are perversely intertwined, Cleo and Sofia quietly wrestle with changes infiltrating the family home in a country facing confrontation between a government-backed militia and student demonstrators."
If you would like to read more about the film, read
Wilkinson’s review here, but most of all, do not delay seeing this limited release work of art that is certain to be in the winner’s circle this award season.