December 17, 2018 Issue

“A Ford Galaxy, shining and growling, inches into the garage beside the house, with a shadowy figure at the wheel.” I love that line. It’s from Anthony Lane’s “Housebound,” a review of Alfonso Cuarón’s absorbing new movie, “Roma,” in this week’s issue. “Roma” tells the story of a maid named Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio), who works for a wealthy family in Mexico City. I saw it a couple of nights ago on Netflix. Lane likes the movie. After reeling off several complaints about it – too pat, too fancy, too complacent – he says, “Yet here’s the thing: ‘Roma’ is persuasive in its beauty. It wins you over.”

Well, it didn’t win over Richard Brody. In his “There’s a Voice Missing in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’ ” (newyorker.com, December 18, 2018), he criticizes it for its “effacement” of Cleo’s character – “her reduction to a bland and blank trope that burnishes the director’s conscience while smothering her consciousness and his own.” Brody may have a point. Even so, it doesn’t ruin the film. As Lane says, “It is the clarity of Cuarón’s eye, and the sea-like sway of his remembrance, that compel you to trust the tale he tells.”