The Uncomfortable and Profound Authenticity of <em>Roma</em>
That was me, I whispered to myself when, early in Roma, a maid named Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio) perched on the edge of a sleeping child’s bed one morning. I whispered those words again when Cleo peeled eggs for young Pepe (Marco Graf) at breakfast while he shared his dreams of becoming a pilot. As I watched Alfonso Cuarón’s sumptuous black-and-white Netflix drama about a domestic worker employed by a middle-class family in the La Roma neighborhood of 1970s Mexico, I flitted back and forth: I was Cleo. I was also the children.
As someone who was raised by maids and who later worked as one, I found that the most authentic moments in Roma were also the subtlest: the silent expressions and gestures of tenderness that blur the line between family member and employee. It’s this in-between space where the complicated love between Cleo and her employer’s family takes root.
Whether in France where I worked, in Singapore where I was raised, or in Mexico where is set, many live-in maids do similar tasks: preparing meals, washing laundry, cleaning the house, caring for pets, and watching over children. In ’s opening scene, the camera
