The last movie to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards was 2012’s Amour. In fact, throughout the 90-year history of the Oscars, only nine foreign films have ever been up for the night’s biggest trophy, and none have won. That might soon change.
Directed and written by Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Gravity), Roma is a semi-autobiographical drama about growing up in 1970s Mexico City, and in particular a “love letter to the women who raised him.” In his review from TIFF, our own Mike Ryan called it a “gorgeous movie, meticulously shot, that deserves and commands your full attention.” It’s best seen in a theater, but that’s not possible for everyone: Roma is getting a limited release (but not at your local Alamo Drafthouse) before debuting on Netflix on December 14.
Try not to watch it on your phone, though.
Here’s the official plot synopsis.
The most personal project to date from Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón, Roma follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.
Roma opens in select theaters on November 21.
