Y Tu Mamá
También (Alfonso Cuarón) 2002
The phenomena that made Alfonso Cuarón’s admittedly funny Y Tu Mama
Tambien the most popular film ever to be released in Mexico seems to be
awfully similar to the one that made the sophomoric sex comedy American Pie
such a hit here in the States. The movie’s certainly as enamored with carnal
mechanics as Pie was, and it’s as flat out terrified of male
homosexuality as that movie was, too. The serviceable road movie plot follows
two pseudo-outsiders during the summer after high school graduation, but in
terms of perceptiveness it doesn’t even orbit Ghost World. Perhaps,
it’s because this film’s protagonists are Julio and Tenoch, a duo of stoner
teen boys that are mainly concerned with getting laid, instead of two
intelligent girls that genuinely worry about their place in the world. The
ambivalence of the main characters is pointed out time and again by Cuarón’s
roaming camera and omniscient voiceovers. Because of the vapidity of the leads,
this coming of age tale lacks much in the way of emotional impact. The lead
characters are moved profoundly by their experiences, but watching those events
did little for me. I’m not saying that stupid people can’t have moments of
insight… just that watching them as they’re having them doesn’t profoundly
move me.
After the duo becomes a trio, thanks to the accompaniment of
Luisa (Maribel Verdú), a Spaniard that leaves her cheating husband to join the
boys on a trip to the beach, the film attempts to throw a bit of weightiness
into the mix. Poorly aping the New Wave classic Jules & Jim, the
movie stumbles time and again because of Cuarón’s ham fisted approach. The
aforementioned voiceovers are used so often that they lose impact. They attempt
to tell us the hidden truths that lie just outside the frame, but as the
characters in the film observe, the truth is a nice ideal, but also
unattainable. With this perception of truthfulness, the political context that
their escapist story is placed into basically boils down to the not at all
shocking revelation that affairs of state don’t always operate as they appear
to. The pot-fueled manifesto that the boys create is supposed to show how silly
political agenda is, but it’s the very definition of weak-minded satire. Worse
yet, the narration manages to erase the few subtleties of character that crop up
when it explicitly reveals the motivations behind the characters’ actions.
Explicit (and not raunchy) is probably the most appropriate
word to describe the film’s sex scenes as well. Like the voice-overs, though,
the initially refreshing feeling caused by their candor eventually is numbed
because of their overuse. Also, the film seems to want us to think that these
scenes are funny and sexy, but they felt more sad and pathetic to me than
anything, suggesting there’s a difference between the level of sexual
explicitness and the level of sexual maturity. In any case, the obviously
manipulative plot muffles any approximation of emotional reality that these
scenes help stir up. When Luisa melodramatically asks “Don’t you wish you
could live forever?” she might as well cough up blood. Instead of an ending
that suggests the things learned during the film will lead toward a revolution of sorts, the movie retreats into complacency and mock wisdom. Perhaps the lower
degree of difficulty chosen to end the film with is preferable, because I doubt
the cast would be up to a greater challenge. Verdú, in particular, fails to
convey the mix of heartbreak and betrayal that her character must feel. Her
moments of hurt simply don’t. As the film rattles along like the car that
moves the characters closer to their paradise, further layers of the truth
continue to be revealed. Unfortunately, Y Tu Mamá También has a great
distance to go before that truth becomes enlightening.
**1/2
3-16-02
Jeremy Heilman
