Y tu mamá también

Plot synopsis:
The film uses an omniscient narrator to provide information on the characters and their personal lives, historical Mexican events, and the settings depicted in the film. These "footnotes" also address economic and political issues in Mexico, particularly the impoverished lifestyle of people living in rural areas of the country.
The story itself begins at the threshold of two friends' adulthood. Julio (Gael García Bernal) comes from a leftist middle-class family and Tenoch's (Diego Luna) father is a high-ranking political official. The film opens with a scene of each boy having sex with his girlfriend one last time before the girls leave on a trip to Italy. Without their girlfriends around, the boys take the opportunity to live as bachelors. At a wedding, they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdú), an older woman and the wife of Tenoch's cousin Jano. The boys attempt to impress her with talk of an invented, secluded beach called Boca del Cielo ("Heaven's Mouth"), but she initially declines their invitation to accompany them there. Later, Luisa visits a doctor; after her appointment, she receives a phone call from Jano in which he tearfully confesses that he has been cheating on her. The next day, Luisa calls Tenoch and asks if their offer to accompany them to the beach is still open.
Although Julio and Tenoch have no idea where the promised beach is, the three set off for it, driving through rural Mexico. They talk about their relationships and sexual experiences to pass the time: the boys boast about the number of women with whom they have slept, while Luisa speaks of Jano and wistfully recalls her first love, who died in a motorcycle accident. During an overnight stop, Luisa leaves a tearful message on Jano's answering machine explaining that she has left him. Tenoch enters her motel room in search of shampoo but finds her crying. Luisa seduces him, and he awkwardly but enthusiastically has sex with her. Julio sees this from the open doorway and is obviously upset but walks away and sits down outside by the pool. Tenoch comes down to the pool and Julio informs Tenoch that he's had sex with Tenoch's girlfriend. The next day, Luisa notices the boys are quiet with each other, so she has sex with Julio to equalize their perceived status. Tenoch then reveals that he had sex with Julio's girlfriend. The boys begin to fight until Luisa threatens to leave them.
Driving along the coastal road that evening, they chance upon an isolated beach that fits the general description of Boca del Cielo. Making camp there, they begin to relax and enjoy the ocean along with the company of a local family. In the nearby village, Luisa makes a final phone call to Jano, bidding him an affectionate but final farewell.
That evening, the three drink excessively and joke recklessly about their sexual transgressions, revealing that each boy has frequently had sex with the other's girlfriend. In light of their shocking confessions, Julio tells Tenoch that he also had sex with Tenoch's mother. All three are drunk and they laugh about it. The three dance together sensually and then retire to their room. They begin to undress and grope drunkenly. As Luisa kneels between them and stimulates them both, the boys embrace and kiss each other passionately.
The next morning, the boys wake up together, naked. Luisa has risen early. Tenoch and Julio immediately turn away from each other and are eager to return home. The narrator explains that their journey back was quiet and uneventful, and that Luisa stayed behind to explore the nearby coves. The narrator further discloses that Tenoch and Julio began relationships with other girls, and stopped spending time with each other.
In a chance encounter in Mexico City a year later, Tenoch and Julio have a cup of coffee, awkwardly catching up on each other's lives and news of their mutual friends. Tenoch informs Julio that Luisa died of cancer a month after their trip, and that she had been aware of her prognosis during the time they had spent together. Tenoch excuses himself because his girlfriend is waiting for him, and Julio is left in the coffee shop. The narrator reveals that they never see each other again.

Tags: comedy, dramatic, psychedelic, humor, romantic, entertaining, storytelling

Review:
`Y tu Mama tambien,' a stunning new product of the New Mexican Cinema that is achieving crossover success in the American film market, is a frank, open and uninhibited celebration of teenage sex  masterfully directed by Alfonso Cuaron and beautifully enacted by a trio of first-rate performers.
The matter-of-fact, unflinching way in which Cuaron films his sex scenes purges them of indecency and helps to bring a new frankness to a subject all too often approached by American filmmakers from the angle of tittering exploitation (wherein the directors and writers seem as adolescent in their attitudes as the characters on the screen).
For indeed, one thing the film makes very clear both to the characters and to us is that sex can often be employed as a weapon to wound those we care most about, especially with all the power shifting that takes place even in some of the most non-sexual of relationships.
Returning to his home country this time, Cuaron displays such magic and poetic visuals, in contrast with the subtle criticism to the society in Mexico, and the clever and sharp dialogs between the leading stars, using every word young Mexicans use to apply in their conversations."Y Tu Mama Tambien" (And Your Mother Too) is, in the surface, a really funny story about 2 friends-almost-brothers, Tenoch Iturbide (an outstanding Diego Luna) and Julio (a really incredible performance for the recent Ariel, the Mexican Academy Award, winner Gael Garcia Bernal, in another excellent portray of a young guy with "issues"), that plan a trip to an imaginary beach, "Boca del Cielo" (Heaven´s Mouth) in order to flirt with a Spanish girl, married with Tenoch's cousin, and portrayed by a credible Maribel Verdu.But this is only the "surface" of this road movie.
This is a clever and sharp critic of the different models of living of these 2 friends, and in fact, of all Mexican citizens (I know it, because I'm Mexican, too).Also, the movie has an excellent narration by Daniel Gimenez Cacho, star of a previous Cuaron film, "Solo Con Tu Pareja", that explains the things we cannot see, but that we can understand and feel.
The "subtle critic about Mexican society and traditions" that I have talked about all along this comment, is the one thing that makes this picture go from a funny comedy to an intelligent essay of the lives of young people, social classes, discovery and re-discovery of personality and our own soul, and the final revelation of who we are and what we become when time passes by.
Though it leaves you with a sad feeling at the end, it doesn't keep you depressed the whole way through.As well as being a character-driven youth drama/road movie, it's basically a film about life, most specifically fate and how it works in mysterious ways and how many people live parallel lives and simply aren't aware.
One in which you can really appreciate the sure hand of director Alfonso Cuaron working at the top of his form with an excellent group of actors, which proves that when someone of this magnitude decides to make a good film about interesting characters in contemporary Mexico, one can expect a fine finished product.Alfonso and Carlos Cuaron have created people and situations that are very believable.
It's a great Mexican Road movie done with a lot of care.The Cuarons shows us a slice of life that could happen, not only in that country, but one that is universal.
The Cuarons have turned out a magnificent script and have turned away from those popular melodramas that are a staple of the film industry of our neighbor to the South.Gael Garcia Bernal, who was excellent in Amores Perros, here demonstrates once again what an actor can do, given the right scenario and obviously a lot of freedom to give life to Julio.
This was the right vehicle for her and she takes advantage of a role that makes her outshine the rest of the cast.One can only hope more interesting things coming from this director and Mexico's gain is our loss, as it's obvious Mr. Cuaron's incursion into American films have not been as satisfactory as his work here..
I do not feel that I will be able to describe exactly what I felt having seen this film, but if you would like to see my effort then read on.This is the story of 2 teenagers, Tenoch and Julio, best friends their whole lives, which have indulged in many of life's guilty pleasures.
This is the beginning of the road trip to the non-existent beach that will change their lives.An unidentified man narrates the entire film, and when he speaks all goes silent in the scenes serving as a moving freeze frame if you will.
Relationships like this simply don't seem like they can be cheated; yet through some form of skill and humanity every element comes together just right, never distracting or deterring you from the story.Featured are some of the best-shot sex scenes ever (as one of my friends pointed out as a matter of fact).
When looking at the movie cover and movie rating, perhaps the film seems like the Mexican version of a mix between Road Trip and American Pie, but after watching the film, deep life lessons can be found in the background of the picture.
In this story, Tenoch and Julio are two friends whose girlfriends go away to Italy for a little while and are left with not much to do (outside of partying and masturbation) until they get an idea to go to a secluded beach called Heaven's Mouth and ask the married and 10 years older Luisa to come along.
The only flaws keeping Cuaron's latest work from being a great coming of age tale is that the narration, while keeping in some good insight along the way, becomes heavy handed at times and gives information that is either humorist news along the area the characters are traveling or about the characters themselves which isn't a bad thing until it digs into things that don't have much relevance to the rest of the picture or even to the characters when you think about what is really up on the screen.
Plus, the very last scene is too conventional to be placed as where the film leads up to (he should've ended it when Luisa goes into the ocean the last time).But still, these squabbles shouldn't stop people from seeing this movie, overall it delivers splendidly in it's uninhibited and mature ways.
There is not an interesting or original thought, shot, or line of dialogue in the whole film.The idea that this movie has anything to say about politics or "sex roles" or "coming of age" is ludicrous.
It takes more than two actors and an actress on screen to make JULES ET JIM.To repeat: ALL THAT HAPPENS in this movie is two boys and one woman ride in a car, get naked, sit around on the beach, have sex, and read page after page of pointless, clichéd dialogue.
And I can see from many of the reviews here that I am sadly right.Y Tu Mama Tambien is a fairly schizoid film in that on the surface the story is of two spoiled brats whiling away summer break and their coastal trip with a sad young wife who is leaving her husband, but there is a constant subtext of commentary, some of it voice-over, some woven subtly into the story about contemporary Mexico, the disillusionment of young people with their world as well as general angst of the people with their nation.Unfortunately, the surface story is not very interesting.
Hoping to escape her troubles, she agrees to accompany the boys on an extended road trip, during which their lives are changed forever.Opening with two simulated (but incredibly realistic) sex scenes, Alfonso Cuarón's ambitious Mexican road movie has more on its mind than mere titillation (AMERICAN PIE this ain't!).
Immensely popular on its home turf, particularly amongst hormonally-charged teenagers, the film embroiders its commercial aspects with a political awareness that acts as social commentary: The narrative unfolds amidst the decline of the much-hated Institutional Revolutionary Party which governed the country until July 2000, and the three principal characters travel through a landscape scarred by poverty, yet enriched by its heritage and traditions.Verdú offers her sexual favors freely to the boys (for reasons which only become clear toward the end of the film), but her actions have unforeseen consequences which threaten to tear the two old friends apart.
This is a movie which dares to tell the truth about sex and sexuality, not merely to provoke viewers (though the nudity is both generous and cheerful, and the beautiful García Bernal has since become something of a gay icon and poster boy) but also to illuminate the motives which underpin the characters and their fragile relationship.
'Y Tu Mama Tambien' is a nicely acted and filmed drama about a woman who, escaping her existing life (for reasons only full explained at the end of the movie), hooks up with a couple of randy, affluent teenage boys.
"Y tu mamá también" blows away the teen road trip genre.Setting a new standard between the naive youthful exuberance of "The Sure Thing" and the nihilism of "Kids," this captures the restless sexual energy of teenagers, particularly of boys, framed by the knowing maturity of a cynical, omniscient narrator and an older, but still young woman who never really had an adolescence.As they travel from the crowded class politics of Mexico City to an undeveloped beach, their trip together is also of self-exploration, as well as metaphorically into Mexico's psyche, not that I caught all the references.
The beautiful older woman (Ana Lopez Mercado), teaching them about life, sex and themselves, is from Spain; the upper class boy (Diego Luna) has the Aztec name of "Tenoch," and his working class best bud has the last name of "Zapata" (played by the riveting Gael Garcia Bernal, who was also in another terrific Mexican film Amores Perros, and is so charismatic that I kept following him with my eyes and forgetting to read the white on white subtitles to figure out what he was saying, so Spanish speakers have a real advantage).The climaxes are telegraphed in advance, coming organically out of the story, but make us re-interpret what we've seen throughout, so it's the kind of movie you want to talk about to people who have seen it.As scatological as the subtitles are, I gathered that the spoken language is even more so, as I recognized a couple of epithets that didn't get translated.The cinematography is lush and beautiful, the only indication that this is the same writer/director who did Great Expectations and The Little Princess, Alfonso Cuaron.The soundtrack songs are carefully selected to reflect specific points of Mexican influences and regional culture as they play on the radios and jukeboxes along this brilliant, revelatory journey.
On top of this is the story of two 17-year old kids that are Mexico's intellectual rivals of Beavis and Butthead, who are hot on the trail of the clueless 28-year old wife ( Maribel Verdu) of the cousin of one of the two dumbheads, who has the bright idea of following these two jerks to a far-off beach called Boca del Cielo, spiced with some insipid sex-scenes, a lot of crude bodily functions, all done in the spirit of trying to be "original" and "shocking", sentiments that are never reached by Cuaron's pedestrian directing and total absense of close-ups in one of the dullest films of the year.
I feel that what is presented in this film this is so *real*.The vapid and loveless sex scenes show just how empty and meaningless lust really is, the glimpses of the religion, folklore and the countryside indicating the layers of history, culture and beauty of this country.People I know have disliked the film, saying that it is too gratuitous, too sexual, and felt the actors had been taken advantage of.I cannot for the life of me understand this, to not be able to see the wonder of this film for what it is, a celebration of being alive, not catering to Hollywood, glamorising everything, rather showing things how they sometimes can be, stark, complicated and raw..
The film's purpose is not to be funny but to portray the realizations of the characters on their trip.Y Tu Mama Tambien feels like a documentary in watching, in part from the omniscient narrations describing the country but also from the excellent acting of Diego Luna (Tenoch) and Gael Garcia Bernal (Julio).
Like most 17 year-olds, all they can think of is sex, and when they meet an attractive Spanish woman, Luisa (Maribel Verdú), Tenoch's cousin's wife, they convince her to go on a road trip with them.
Sex is naturally discussed - and shown - throughout the film, but in a mature way, and Cuarón dives into serious issues like friendship, love, Mexico's socio-economic reality and life itself.
On the way to the perfect beach (which may or may not exist), they discover more about life, love, sex and themselves than they might have otherwise wished to know.Having never really watched a truly Spanish film before, I can honestly say that I was extremely impressed.
The problem is that much of the deeper issues and intelligence of this film are buried underneath a preoccupation with juvenile humour and softcore pornography.Don't get me wrong, I'm not overly conservative or anal retentive, but I expect South Park from South Park, and from a film like this, I expect a little less Emmanuelle - I don't see this as a kitschy, art-house, blue foreign film.What I do see this film as, is using the struggle between two teenage boys to deal with each other's cultural differences and coming of age to represent the struggle Mexico (and many other countries like it) to overcome corruption and deceit, lass struggle and misguided revolution.Y Tu Mama Tambien has the opportunity to say a lot more than it does, but wastes it with silly sex scenes and flatulence jokes.
`Jules & Jim' go South of the Border could have been the pitch filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron made in this funny and at times unexpectedly touchingly real look at sex, friendship, love and life lessons involving two immature Mexican buddies (Bernal and Luna) who hook up with sexy Verdu on a road trip to a seemingly fictitious beach whereby en route they discover some revealing things about themselves together and apart.
One of the most overrated films by the most overrated director to come out of Mexico - a complete lack of character, storytelling, wit, anything to make a movie interesting - unless you like shock value - some very simple-minded laughs and attempts at sexiness.
In the U.S. cinema this would all point the way to a silly teenage road trip film with over-sexed boys on the prowl, but "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is not like that at all.
Way before sweeping the Oscars with Gravity, and right before being in charge of Harry Potter's third movie, Alfonso Cuarón filmed in Mexico a little road movie that became a sudden hit around the world (and gave him and his brother Carlos an Oscar nomination for the screenplay), cemented his reputation as one of the top filmmakers currently working (and truth be told, his Potter gig wouldn't have happened without this one), and made the lead trio (Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Maribel Verdú) international celebrities.In Y tu mama tambien, Cuarón tells the story of Tenoch and Julio, two best friends, fresh off their high school graduation and looking for summer action after their girlfriends leave for European vacations.
After they meet Luisa (the Spanish wife of Tenoch's cousin), they invite her to a trip to the beach (a fictional one) and she declines the offer at first, but when she receives life- changing news, Tenoch and Julio are forced to improvise everything for the journey along with her.Cuarón goes beyond the typical road movie and offers a luscious portrait of a Mexico marked by overwhelming social contrasts, as seen in Tenoch and Julio's friendship, the former son of a prominent politician with a turbulent past, and the latter, son of a working- class single mother, and also seen in the many places visited by them during their unusual trip (a country filled with poverty and misery, but with a strange vitality and beauty).
But the movie's revelation is Maribel Verdú (already famous in Spain before this movie), who finds in Luisa the perfect opportunity to show her acting skills as a vulnerable woman, ready to leave the pain behind and enjoy life in every way.One can say Y tu mama tambien is a curious mix of coming of age movie + road tip + raunchy teen comedy, but the result is nothing like any of those.
While the importance of reproduction is undeniable, we cannot let it distract us from other beautiful things in life."Y Tu Mama Tambien" is about two best friends (Diego Luna & Gael Garcia Bernal) who go on a road trip accompanied by an older woman named Luisa (Maribel Verdu) looking to seduce her.
The characters in this film are only doing it for pleasure, it's what they want the most and probably the only thing they think about, it's a journey about finding ourselves and the things that make us human.I also love the narration, it makes the movie feel a lot more intimate than it already is from the opening scene (when we see one of our main protagonist's having sex with his girlfriend) by letting us know personal details of every single character.
It begins with sex and humor scenes which give more and more definition of the characters, those funny Julio and Tenoch and their particular way of looking at life.
On this, the opening weekend of the third AMERICAN PIE movie, I voted with my feet and instead chose to watch a different coming of age film - Alfonso Cuaron's Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN.