Rating: 
Summary: good but no "masterpiece"
Review: Good: the underlying real-worldliness of the film---the premise that everybody lies to everybody else and themselves, that friends are friends from one moment to the next not forever, that in life there is no forever but only a string of moments and therefore we must learn to live and love accordingly. The sex scenes have a refreshing realism to them, there's none of the MTV-stylized fake glamour designed to titillate repressed American audiences. It's just people being people physically enjoying people...nothing more, nothing less, no inhibitions but also no pretensions either. Why no "masterpiece"---poor film editing makes for several slow and over-long scenes. This movie feels longer than it is, just doesn't flow as well as another recent (much closer to "masterpiece" status) Mexican film, "Amor es perros." That being said, the characters are brilliantly cast and you could do much, much worst than watching this movie.
Rating:
Summary: A smart, sexy movie
Review: Great writing, great acting, great sex. And the characters are all likeable. I have very only a few complaints with this movie. It has too many handheld camera shots -- the director retained a steadycam operator, but didn't use him at all! The film employs a narrator. The narration is intentionally over _dead-silence_ -- i.e. the other audio is completely muted when the narrator speaks. This is jarring to the listener, and is obviously a slap in the face of the classical use of narration. These are bad, trendy filmmaking decisions which take you out of the story and thereby undermine its effect. The narrator sometimes provides reasonable background information, but other times, for no good reason, he speaks of future events unrelated to the film itself. For instance he speaks of how an undeveloped beach in the film will fall victim to the construction of an "exclusive" hotel. These gratuitous political messages undermine the real value of the film: the depiction of a fascinating and tender friendship between two young men and an older woman. One of the final scenes (a friendly discussion over a table in a bar) is pure magic. I generally dismiss long takes as pretentious, but this one is so flawlessly acted and lit (and the camera is steady enough) that it makes up completely for the film's other flaws. Finally, a wonderfully erotic film which doesn't cheapen sex, but instead gives you plenty to think about.
Rating: 
Summary: Hot Blooded
Review: Without a doubt the most entertaining film of 2002. This film is so honest and full of life it should almost be illegal. This film, directed by Mexico's Alfonso Cuaron, is the story of two Mexican yuppies and their never ending quest for fulfillment. Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) are facing the possibilty of a boring summer as their girlfriends have just left them to head to Europe. To their suprise, they encounter Tenoch's cousin in-law, the beautiful Luisa (Maribel Verdu), at a family wedding who is also looking for a bit of adventure in her life. The boys suggest a fictitious beach, Heaven's Mouth, as an ideal place to take a summer trip. Shortly thereafter, this unlikely trio is embarking on a cross country trip to a place that doesn't exist. On the road; secrets are spilled, beliefs are challenged, and life experiences are made. The boys are ultimatley challenged to see beyond their sex-crazed desires. The dialogue is relentlessly erotic, the cinematography is beautiful, and the story enthralls you. The performances are flawless. Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal asserts himself as an actor destined for future glory in independent films and beyond. His performance is so honest and touching that only an Oscar would be justifibale for him. His on-screen presence is untouchable, he will clearly set the standard for Mexican actors in the future. Childhood friend Diego Luna is also terrific and provides non-stop laughs through his quirky dialogue. Maribel Verdu is excellent as the boys temptress. She bares all and risks everything in her sexy portrayal of a middle aged woman. Bottom line: This is a movie that must be seen by anyone who has an open mind and has ever taken risks. A mercilessly flawless film, the best of 2002
Rating: 
Summary: The more I think about it the less I like it
Review: Tenoch: 17 year old beer-swilling layabout pothead. Revels in absurd pretension of becoming a writer. Makes false promises of loyalty to his girlfriend. Has had sex with his best friend's girlfriend several times. Has sex with his cousin's wife. Likes to drive car while intoxicated. Charming boy! Julio: Another 17 year old beer-swilling layabout pothead. Has had sex with his best friend's girlfriend several times. (He reveals the first of these escapades to his best friend solely out of spite.) Also has had sex with his best friend's mother! And with his best friend's cousin's wife, of course. Another charmer. Luisa: 28 year old married adult woman who commits adultery by seducing two 17 year old children, both individually, then together. Endorses the consumption of pot and copious amounts of beer by the children. Indeed, permits them to drive while intoxicated. Somehow this stuff didn't come through very clearly in the glowing reviews of this movie. Instead, the reviewers talked about the "innocence" of the boy's sexual awakening and other such hogwash. Am I being too judgmental? Just imagine the outrage there would be if the sexual roles were reversed -- if it were a 28 year old married man fostering the debauchery of two underaged girls! Why should the outrage be any less about this movie? Fortunately, it is not all immoral swill: The Mexican scenery is fascinating and I love the Marco Antonio Solis song that Luisa cues up on the jukebox.
Rating: 
Summary: Junk
Review: People who rate this piece of junk highly are full of it. It's an amateurish "coming of age" movie with obnoxious and/or unbelievable characters. It goes nowhere and raises absolutely no emotions. The end is a total copout - so the woman screws the 2 boys not because she is mad at her husband - or even enjoys sex - but because she is dying of cancer. Give me a break. The 2 main boys have no redeeming features that would make us give a damn about them...just typical teenie slackers with nothing interesting to say. The whole thing has an air of concocted "spontaneity" that I didn;t buy for a moment. Save your money!!!
Rating:
Summary: Nice travelogue, tedious film
Review: The people who made this movie must have watched every one of those amoral French movies of the '70s. Lots of cigarettes smoked, beers consumed, and more marijuana than any movie this side of Cheech and Chong. The trip through the Mexican countryside is visually fascinating, but the story is hackneyed. I can't call this a coming of age story because it is hard to see how the boys would be matured by this escapist fantasy. And do people really find this erotic? It's all very predictable and has a ridiculously manipulative ending. Hugely overrated. But I'd love to see a grown-up movie in the same setting.
Rating: 
Summary: ok, but a masterpiece? go get a life!
Review: This movie is highly rated, but beware or you might get disappointed. It's a nice movie, not the regulat teenage trash, but a masterpiece? far, far from that. Some nice touches on the directorial part. The naration is fluent and quite informative, by providing a glimpse into the future rather than telling you about the past. thumbs up here, as this is really adding to the story. The actors are also quite good. However, I found myself at times bored - some of the scenes are just too long. The good parts - yes, the ones that are more erotic - are too few and far between. They are also not inspiring - check the sex scene in Thelma & Louise for example - it's less revealing and better than all the scenes in this movie together. If you wonder what these include, they include 2 scenes between the lead characters and their girlfriends at the beginning of the movie, 3 scenes between the guys and the leading lady (2 a lone, and one together, including a kiss between the boys) and one more so-so cut scene. There are more scenes in the short movie of the director's brother which is included as a bonus - a nice touch, and in fact better than the main feature itself. My advice? rent it, but don't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: a moment in time, like a photograph....
Review: Y Tu Mama Tambien is a great film. The direction is snappy, heartfelt, natural, beautiful, and as the film goes on, what may seem like a simple story, a light-hearted road-trip, becomes something more, something which takes on a life of its own and transforms the mundane into something exceptional. The three main characters, two sexually charged but well-meaning 17 year old boys, and a 28 year old woman dealing with the potential crumbling of her marriage, among other things, come together in a realistic intersection of excitement, tragedy, and lust as they embark on a spur-of-the moment road trip vacation, heading across the gorgeous Mexican landscape on their meandering way to a mystical, beautiful beach called "Heaven's Mouth," which may or may not exist. (The boys, each smitten with the stunning twenty-something woman they have found themselves introduced to, have hastily patched-together the 'trip' (they had no such trip planned, but, as young people so often do, they put it together in no time flat, their spontaneity completely intact) as a chance to spend some time with the woman, though the real occurence of their intentions with her (romance?) is at best tenuous as they embark, considering she is married to the uncle of one, and is quite a bit older, in a different stage of life, to say the least. She is the slightly world-weary adult. This intrigues them, adds a level of mystery to her that their current same-age girlfriends somehow do not have. The film works in part by painting their desires and curiosities against hers. They are looking to her (perhaps without realizing it?) in some way for answers to questions in their lives, for what comes next, plus her experience (sexual and otherwise) must also intrigue them. For her, facing a crossroads in her life herself, they perhaps represent a lost freedom and innocence that she may want to reclaim for a time. Beyond all this too, this semi-seriousness, is the fact that each of them just wants to have a little fun. To have an escape, perhaps. From the familiar, from decisions (should she stay with her philandering husband? What career should the two boys choose? Should they stay with their girlfriends etc?), from familial obligations and for the two young men, from parental 'supervision' and influence. The plot of the film, or what carries it along, is the fact that of course there are two of them, so the question is how could any romance between either one of them and her work? This 'plot' somehow in the end comes second to something else, something more bittersweet and nostalgic, a depiction of three lives at a moment in time so realistic it is almost uncanny. Simply put, the three take a "trip" together, in more than one meaning of the word, and much as in life, once the period of time in their lives is over, neither of the three will be the same. The things they think, feel and do, the things they say to one another, their interactions, as well as the things they see on their way, the way little slivers of the lives around them on their travel get picked up by the three, and the viewers, by a sort of osmosis, make up the larger 'picture' here. The film itself at the beginning is like a pencil sketch, with the beautiful watercolor pigments slowly being brought in, one by one, as the moments go by, until, as the film ends, there is this full painting, framed and silent, that is worth a thousand words somehow. What is it about the freedom inherent in these Mexican and Spanish and other foreign films that is so delicious? Whatever it is, the amorphous loose and languid quality is in full force here, to good effect. Featuring some truly fantastic acting, great directing, music and locations, y Tu Mama Tambien is a stunner of a film, and I highly recommend it. Speaking generally, the filmmakers here nail that amorphous 'something' that translates what could have been just another movie into movie-making magic. If you liked this film, seek out Sex and Lucia, from Spain. Each carries within it a world worthy of checking out and staying for a while, and, though S&L contains more fantastical fictionalistic elements, and YTMT is more of a reality-based, reality-feeling (almost documentary-feeling at some points), they both reveal what is magic about film-making, that indefinable "It." Looking forward to more by all three main actors, Maribel Verdú,
Gael García Bernal, and Diego Luna. Enjoy!.....
Rating:
Summary: A new great director.
Review: "The best way to summarize "Y Tu Mama Tambien" would be to borrow some of Neil Young's lyrics which inspired the grunge generation: "Better to burn out than to fade away". The reference to Neil Young fits perfectly with the road movie genre anyway - and grunge fits in terms of subject and character with this film in particular. Moreover beyond the sometimes too easy sexual-teen-comedy (where full nudity and bodies getting laid are shown repeatedly) it is its real philosophy, and its genuine attitude towards life which make the movie strong and powerful. Not that the sexual content has to be thrown away, it's more the attitude towards sex which is new and interesting than the images seen too many times. The three main characters talk about sex, fart freely, and masturbate together (or each other) in a genuinely free spirit. This attitude is interesting and new. Another way to describe it would be to say that the words are more important in the movie than the images. These words and the attitude of the characters create the film philosophy which says: life is not much, enjoy it to the max as long as you can, you never know when it will end. The film says more elegantly: "Life is like the surf, so give yourselves away like the sea".
The only problem is that to be sure to attain his goal, Cuaron has a tendency to say too much in too many different directions: a social context mixes with an analytical (too analytical) voice over -- the past mixes with the present, our characters mix with other people's life (which are not in the movie) and finally a last twist at the end (which would be unfair to describe here). All of these were maybe not necessary and clutter the film with a feeling of "too much". The talent of the director and moreover what he has to say about life were strong enough to keep us captivated until the end. Anyway it remains a very strong, clever and subtle film about sex... and life. Don't miss it." By Phil Ed for [URL]
Rating:
Summary: Very nearly a perfect movie
Review: Y Tu Mama Tambien is a solid film about the bond between two teenage boys and how that bond is challenged when a woman comes between them. The two boys meet one of their(unhappily)married female cousins at a family function and just on a whim the boys ask her to join them for a week at a remote beach. To their surprise she agrees. One thing that keeps the story interesting and gives it its unique perspective is that the movie is spiced throughout with little narrative asides which comment on the course different lives take. The boys are young and full of energy and enthusiasm. The slightly older and very sexy cousin at first seems like the summers big score but soon the boys are at odds with each other as they each try to win her attention and then they are odds with each other when they must confront the "truths" of their own friendship. As the movie progresses the two boys story of innocence and the end of it is contrasted with the cousins story of experience and her desire for a last taste of the innocence the boys will soon be losing. The film feels very loose and free capturing the boys in moments of fun as well as moments of conflict but it is very well constructed. Many films try to capture youth and never seem to get it right but this one gets both the passion and the pain of being on the cusp of adulthood just right. It also gets the pain and passion of early adulthood just right as well as the cousin and her unique situation and how she deals with it is just as memorable and central to the film as the two boys story is. It has the feel of a light and breezy comedy in parts and yet in other parts it offers the insight associated with a serious drama. A rare and honest and bold study of what youth feels like. Very nearly a perfect movie. And a great soundtrack. And great cinematography. And yes it is very very sexy! Offering interesting insight into the different forms passion can take.
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