Venice Review: Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma Is Glorious, Tender Filmmaking

At the beginning of Alfonso Cuarón’s extraordinary film-as-remembrance Roma—playing in competition here at the Venice Film Festival—we meet Cleo, a young woman of Mixteca heritage who works as a servant and sort-of nanny for a middle-class family in Mexico City, circa 1970. In this setting, Cleo, played by first-time actor Yalitza Aparicio, is half visible and half not: In some ways, she’s part of the family.