Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Cast: Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal, Daniel Giménez Cacho

Summary: In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.

Review and Reflection:

Y Tu Mamá También (or And you Mother too!) is a very a well craft exploration of not only teenage sexuality and the socio – economic/political atmosphere on the turn of the millennium Latin America but of death.

Director Alfonso Cuaron takes on a journey with the protagonist with is both a literal and metaphorical road trip. On this journey, the director plays with the traditional fantasy of the younger man infatuated with, the older woman. Both the teenage protagonist like to show their experience, they have girlfriends and the film shows clearly they are intimate with them, but in their interactions with the older Luisa, it shows they are still vastly physically and emotionally inexperienced.

Luisa joins the boys, Julio & Tenoch, on their journey and it is through her light-hearted teasing about their sex lives that the two boys begin to explore their sexuality until there are no secrets left between them. However, Luisa also wants to teach the boys that sex something to be treasured between partners; not how the boys see it, the pursuit of their gratification. The director, through the actions of Luisa shifts the relationship between Tenoch and Julio, to explore sexual freedom and although they do kiss during a drunken night with Luisa this is more an extension of their awakening than a desire to shift their sexual orientation, however, the fact that this is the beginning of the end of their friendship does highlight the cultural barriers towards male homosexuality in Latin America.

The film is also is a reflection upon death which is not immediately apparent throughout the movie, it is unexpected that Luisa readily agrees to join the boys on their road trip – even considering that her husband has been cheating. It only when you heat or Luisa death shortly after the road trip from cancer that thing drop into place, that she has as well as having a final few weeks of fun she has set out to educate the boys about how they should treat women and leaves a great epilogue to the film.