The CinEmma: Roma

“Roma” recently became Netflix’s first original movie to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. However, audience members outside of the Academy and the highest film connoisseurs cannot find the appeal.

The film, which is loosely based on director Alfonso Cuarón’s childhood, follows a domestic worker named Cleo who serves a white family living in Mexico City in the 1970s. With no real plot, the movie shows Cleo as she deals with an unexpected pregnancy and the patriarch of the family she works for abandoning his wife and children in a very Grapes-of-Wrath-esque sequence. Despite being the focus of the film, Cleo is an extremely passive character, who literally just stands and looks around as an earthquake causes buildings to crumble around her.

With the film’s beautiful camera work aiding in conveying the message that the family is a reflection of life in their society as a whole, “Roma” is perfect for those that are interested in cinematography but is not a movie for the novice viewer who simply wants to be entertained. Furthermore, since “Roma” is in black and white and the audio is Spanish, those that are blind and do not speak Spanish will likely struggle to understand the movie.

Tyger Callahan who gave the movie a 4/10 said, “I was not a fan of the black-and-white.”