Y tu mamá también
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| Y tu mamá también | |
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| Directed by | Alfonso Cuarón |
| Produced by | Alfonso Cuarón & Jorge Vergara |
| Written by | Carlos Cuarón & Alfonso Cuarón |
| Starring | Maribel Verdú Gael Garcia Bernal Diego Luna |
| Music by | Natalie Imbruglia Frank Zappa Miho Hatori (songs) |
| Cinematography | Emmanuel Lubezki |
| Editing by | Alex Rodríguez & Alfonso Cuarón |
| Distributed by | - USA/Canada - IFC Films (theatrical) MGM Home Entertainment (DVD) - UK - Icon Entertainment (theatrical) Warner Home Video (DVD) - Mexico/Argentina Italy/Germany France/Switzerland - 20th Century Fox - Spain - Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | June 8, 2001 |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | $5 million (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Y tu mamá también (literally "And your mother, too", but released in English-speaking markets under the original Spanish title) is a 2001 Mexican film directed by Alfonso Cuarón. A coming-of-age story about the road trip of two teenage boys with a woman in her twenties, the film is set against the backdrop of the political and economic realities of present-day Mexico, specifically at the end of the uninterrupted seventy-year line of revolutionary Mexican presidents from the PRI, and the rise of the opposition headed by Vicente Fox. The film achieved great success in its native country and received awards and critical acclaim in foreign territories.
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[edit] Primary cast
- Maribel Verdú: Luisa Cortés
- Gael Garcia Bernal: Julio Zapata
- Diego Luna: Tenoch Iturbide
- Diana Bracho: Silvia Allende de Iturbide
- Andrés Almeida: Diego 'Saba' Madero
- (All the principal characters share surnames with protagonists from Mexico's post-Columbian history.)
[edit] Awards
[edit] Nominations
- Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay (Carlos Cuarón & Alfonso Cuarón)
- BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay (Carlos Cuarón & Alfonso Cuarón)
- BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language
- Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
- Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
[edit] Plot summary
After their girlfriends have departed to Europe, Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) are free to make their own holiday plans. Julio comes from a middle-class family, while Tenoch's father is a high-ranking political dignitary. At a wedding they encounter Luisa (Maribel Verdú), the Spanish wife of Tenoch's cousin Alejandro, who stirs their sexual curiosity. They invent some mythical secluded beach on the Oaxaca coast and tell her they want to go there, hoping she will come along, but she declines.
A few days later, after being told that her husband has slept with another woman, she has changed her mind and agrees with the plan, which is problematic for the boys because they do not know how to find a place like the one they described to her. They enlist the help of their drug-supplying friend Saba (Andrés Almeida), who gives them rather hazy instructions, as well as figure out how they are going to get a car.
During the trip, sexual banter between Julio and Tenoch takes place, in which it gradually becomes clear that they have been sleeping with each other's girlfriends. At first, this revelation is met with disgust and anger, which later gives way to some degree of excitement at the thought. They also battle for the sexual favors of Luisa, who sleeps first with one, then with the other one, but later teases them that they should really be having sex with each other. Luisa is frequently seen crying alone during the trip; Both Tenoch and Julio are aware of this.
Eventually, with the help of a local fisherman the trio discovers a place that even bears the right name. One evening, after lengthy talk about sex and masturbation, the three end up in bed together, where the two boys are at first focused upon the woman but soon start kissing each other passionately.
The next morning, Julio and Tenoch hurriedly decide to leave, while Luisa prefers to stay with the fisherman's family. The dénouement of the story takes place one year later, during which Tenoch and Julio have not seen each other. The two friends bump into each other on the street and agree to go and have a cup of coffee together. They talk of their friends from long ago (other stories are taking place off-camera and are merely mentioned in passing by them), as well as update each other on where their lives are. It is revealed that Luisa was terminally ill with cancer, explaining her sudden change of mood when she got the bad news from her doctor. After their brief and uncomfortable reunion at the restaurant, Tenoch and Julio never see each other again.
While the (mostly sexual) interplay takes place between the three characters, an omniscient narrator points out the past and future of the seemingly innocent roadside and people, contributing to the movie's underlying mood of foreboding and ambivalence — that is, the constant underscoring of the duality between rich and poor, city and country, the European and the indigenous, gay and straight, and the living and the dead.
[edit] Responses to the film
Y tu mamá también was a critical success, garnering awards such as the Venice Film Festival best screenplay award. It was also a runner-up for the National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Picture and Best Director and was nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.
This film is also a good example of the widely varying standards in movie rating systems: The movie was released without a rating in the U.S. because it was believed that an NC-17 would be unavoidable. Other countries, such as France or the Netherlands regarded the film fit to be seen by twelve-year-olds. This perceived excessiveness of censoring of sexuality (especially when compared to the much more accepting attitude towards violence) by the MPAA even prompted noted movie critic Roger Ebert to question why movie industry professionals were not outraged: "Why do serious film people not rise up in rage and tear down the rating system that infantilizes their work?"
