Y tu mamá también

After watching this movie, I looked at what a few critics had to say about it and I was shocked to see some of them refer to this movie as a "teen sex comedy". Wow, I didn't get that impression at all! Yes, the movie is infused with sex, and the two lead characters are horny teens, and there are quite a few comedic moments, but this is far from a teen sex comedy. It's treatment of the subject matter is real, for one thing, and backdrop of the Mexican countryside (and the director's detached observation's through third-person narration) bring some sobriety to the film. Be warned, though: there is a lot of sex, so not exactly a movie you're going to want to watch with the in-laws.

Alfonso Cuaron is simply one of the best Mexican directors in recent years in Mexican film production. His incredible AIDS-driven comedy, "Solo Con Tu Pareja" was maybe the most funny Mexican picture in a long time, and his always present criticism to the way of life of Mexican people in a city such as Mexico City, is incredible accurate and clever. His other projects in the United States, "Little Princess" and "Great Expectations" were beautifully-manufactured motion pictures, with the help (or support, if you may) of the marvellous photographer Emmanuel Lubenzki ("Sleepy Hollow", and the above-mentioned Cuaron movies). Returning to his home country this time, Cuaron displays such magic and poetic visuals, in contrast with the subtle criticism to the society in Mexico, and the clever and sharp dialogs between the leading stars, using every word young Mexicans use to apply in their conversations.

"Y Tu Mama Tambien" (And Your Mother Too) is, in the surface, a really funny story about 2 friends-almost-brothers, Tenoch Iturbide (an outstanding Diego Luna) and Julio (a really incredible performance for the recent Ariel, the Mexican Academy Award, winner Gael Garcia Bernal, in another excellent portray of a young guy with "issues"), that plan a trip to an imaginary beach, "Boca del Cielo" (Heaven´s Mouth) in order to flirt with a Spanish girl, married with Tenoch's cousin, and portrayed by a credible Maribel Verdu.

But this is only the "surface" of this road movie. In fact, we are dealing with dreams and realities, with social problems and political ones. Tenoch is a young guy living with a millionaire family, son of a wealthy businessman with friends in the highest "stairs" of Mexican politics, with a second name such as Iturbide (one of the most important and powerful leaders of Mexican politic history). And, in contrast, Julio is a middle-low-class guy, living with his mother, brothers and sisters, in a small department, with a last name such as Zapata (a revolutionary leader in Mexican history, with native origins, that took part in the Revolution at the beginning of 20th Century). This is a clever and sharp critic of the different models of living of these 2 friends, and in fact, of all Mexican citizens (I know it, because I'm Mexican, too).

Also, the movie has an excellent narration by Daniel Gimenez Cacho, star of a previous Cuaron film, "Solo Con Tu Pareja", that explains the things we cannot see, but that we can understand and feel. The "subtle critic about Mexican society and traditions" that I have talked about all along this comment, is the one thing that makes this picture go from a funny comedy to an intelligent essay of the lives of young people, social classes, discovery and re-discovery of personality and our own soul, and the final revelation of who we are and what we become when time passes by. In the lives of Julio and Tenoch there is no redemption, but a clear message of their goal in life, their true feelings about friendship, and their sexuality. This road trip is only a pretext to tell a story about discovery and finding our true nature.

Yes, maybe it is a little provocative and bold, but because of these characteristics, "And Your Mother Too" is an incredible motion picture, true to its meaning and compromised with the reality it is trying to show. We care about this people, we care about their problems, and at the end, we care about our own society, and we care about what we have become with time. And the true meaning of the movie's title, "And Your Mother Too", within the narrative of the film, is simply hilarious.

Give this movie a chance, and see it. You won't be disappointed. It has an excellent direction, excellent photography, its is very sexy, it showcases credible performances by all its cast. But above all, it has a real story, real character development, and real power. One great movie from a great Mexican director. Maybe not his best, but really near.

Before you read any further I would like to strongly suggest that you go see this film. Do not read my review and just go see it. Find out where it's playing and buy yourself a ticket, in fact bring as many of your friends as you can, such as I did, and I promise you will all somehow have enjoyed it in a way films are rarely enjoyed. I do not feel that I will be able to describe exactly what I felt having seen this film, but if you would like to see my effort then read on.

This is the story of 2 teenagers, Tenoch and Julio, best friends their whole lives, which have indulged in many of life's guilty pleasures. We meet them at a point when their respective present girlfriends are leaving to study in Italy, leaving the 2 friends on their own for the summer. In the short time after their departure we see a whole new side of the boys. They masturbate to the thought of Salma Hayek, smoke weed, drink hard, and flirt with another man's wife. She is a beautiful older woman named Luisa at a wedding, who in turn is Tenoch's cousin's wife. They flirt with her and invite her to come with them to the fictional beach Heaven's Mouth. She is of course reluctant, but takes them up on the offer after her husband one night calls her to confess he cheated on her. This is the beginning of the road trip to the non-existent beach that will change their lives.

An unidentified man narrates the entire film, and when he speaks all goes silent in the scenes serving as a moving freeze frame if you will. He speaks the future of the lives we are watching these people interact with, and ultimately you begin to worry what will be of there own future. During this road trip to the fictional beach, all 3 main characters meet new and interesting people in new and interesting parts of Mexico. It makes them ponder life as their own past experiences begin to unravel in their intimate and personal conversations. Not before long the compounded sexual tension between them is in a way relieved, but to mixed consequences. All of the subtle characteristics of jealousy, anger, passion, naivety, become completely real.

These characters are so believably acted, that when you see these actors in interviews or in other films you'll almost feel cheated. Relationships like this simply don't seem like they can be cheated; yet through some form of skill and humanity every element comes together just right, never distracting or deterring you from the story.

Featured are some of the best-shot sex scenes ever (as one of my friends pointed out as a matter of fact). `Y tu Mama Tambien' finds a way of making all of it's moments feel intimate and genuine, yet never in bad taste. Alfonso Cuaron makes it difficult for us to believe what we are seeing at times is only movie, which serves this tale all the more. The shaky `Road Film Style' cinematography used here is perfect in capturing this uncommon, and unbalanced relationship. You are kept on your toes at all times, expecting something or someone to break. The dialogue is fresh and funny, the kind you just know cannot be faked, that in fact somewhere somehow the writer or actors uttered those phrases. I am convinced that a great majority of this film was improvised, whatever the case may be.

This film is obviously more than flesh, more than experimenting youth. Take some of your favorite moments from mediocre mainstream movies like `American Pie 1 and 2' and remove all the slapstick value. You will realize that there is much more there than you ever saw before. That is what I think in small part this film strives to achieve. It succeeds. We can sympathize with theses characters every step of the way, because as we first get to know them you realize that they either are like you, someone you know, knew, or maybe someone you always wished you could be. By the time things begin to happen to these characters you yourself begin to feel part of their journey.

This is an experience many of you won't take part in, and that is the sincere shame. Instead a great majority of people have been walking out of `The Scorpion King' unchallenged and un-entertained. `Y Tu Mama Tambien' offers a true form of escape, one that no blockbuster will dare. It's the lives few of us will ever live, for better or worse. What transcends from the screen to your hearts and minds is as eye opening as anything you'll ever see, and as effecting, if not more, as your own personal life experience. Bold words? Go see it and you tell me.

Note: Please feel free to contact me and share your thoughts on this film or on my review of it.

The two teenage males in this sharply etched film, "Y tu mama tambien," are obsessed with sex and view its pleasures as something akin to joyfully skating across a frozen lake. As the story develops the ice gets thinner and thinner, its incapacity to carry the weight of their fantasies advances faster than their growing inevitable end stop - maturity.

The Mexico of the teenagers and their generally stoned friends is one of affluence and political connectedness. One father belongs to a country club that features one of the biggest private swimming pools I've seen - no film set here (the pool is the scene of a very, ah, unusual depiction of teen horniness). Neither of the lads cares much about the actual political and social issues occurring during their adventures and which are seamlessly integrated into their story. Their futures are a blank to them but a blank untroubled by the need to be concerned or ambitious.

And then arrives the femme fatale, a beautiful, smart but very raunchy just-left-husband gal with whom they take off in a beaten-up old station wagon to find, ostensibly, a secret beach. Of course what the guys have in mind is seduction.

Without a polemical discourse the viewer is carried into the isolation and poverty of much of Mexico as asphalt yields to hard dirt roads leading to barely navigable sand traps. The people they encounter along the way are realized subtly but effectively.

These teens aren't really so likable but they do show occasional promise of growing up, a redeeming feature. This is less a road film than it is a comedy of (very bad) manners. The director and three leading characters have taken raunch to a new and interesting cinematic plane.

While these kids may be a parent's nightmare, they become more complex, and inevitably more insightful, as the film develops. By the end they are very, very different people and in danger of becoming sort of plain vanilla post-teens (whatever the Mexican equivalent of the Japanese "salaryman" is, they may well be launched along that path).

This film is rated "R" but many will wonder how it avoided an "X." Be forewarned. But some of the sex scenes are hilarious - especially if the viewer has ever been a teenager. :)

Cuaron uses voiceovers not so much to explain the story but to quietly show that all lives have "sidebar" events beyond the tale being told, events that can be described in one or two sentences and which illuminate the fullness of a character's journey.

The scenery is gorgeous.

Definitely a different and engrossing story.

I saw the film twice in 2 days (in original version), and I enjoyed it very much. It is titillating, at times hilarious, touching, candid, serious etc... Roller-coaster of emotions! It is the first film I have seen with Gael Garcia Bernal (Julio in this film), and boy is he great! I love the portrait the film draws of "Teenage Boys lust". The contrast with the mature and controlled Luisa is very interesting. Altogether, I'd recommend it warmly to anyone who enjoys road movies in general and great characters. Obviously it is better in the original, so if you understand a bit of Spanish, don't be put off by the subtitles (you end up reading them really quickly and still enjoy the images...).