Y tu mamá también

Mexican-born, New York-based filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron directed this Mexican box-office smash hit about a pair of randy upper-class buddies that sparked some controversy for its frank depiction of drug use and sexual exploration. With their respective girlfriends away in Europe, Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his upper-class friend Tenoch (Diego Luna) are looking forward to a summer full of drink, drugs, and cheap meaningless sex. During a wedding, they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdu) — the 28-year-old wife of Tenoch's scholarly cousin — and try to convince her to go on a road trip to Heaven's Mouth, a made-up beach paradise the two claim is on the Oaxacan coast. To their surprise, Luisa — who is looking to escape her troubled life for a spell — agrees to go along. Two days into the trip, tension starts to build between the two friends: Luisa has had sex with each, and now both lads are not-so-quietly vying for her affection. Soon simmering jealousies boil over into savage arguments, threatening to completely destroy their friendship. After an enormously successful run in Mexico and Guatemala, this film was screened to much acclaim at the 2001 Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals. — Jonathan Crow

AMG Review:
Y Tu Mamá También has been casually referred to as a Spanish-language American Pie, perhaps because both films include footage of taboo body fluids floating in liquids they don't usually call home — a swimming pool here, a beer there. But that comparison doesn't nearly do justice to Alfonso Cuaron's bold, sexually explicit yet artistically justified coming-of-age piece, which climbs outside the box at every turn. More generous films to associate it with are Run Lola Run and Amelie; both share Mamá's curiosity about the interrelationship of seemingly unlike people and places, and contemplate the pasts and futures of bit players in a manner that seems essential, not superfluous. Yet it's not as glossy as those films, either. Mamá retains a documentary-style realism that's less dependant on set pieces, preferring the messy yet basically benign continuum of life. Mamá's illuminating narration is never intrusive, even though it cuts off the soundtrack in a way that sounds like abrupt speaker failure; it contextualizes the action while leaving the deeper profundities to the viewer's own thoughts. Cuaron's fascinating decisions are as regular as the free-flowing bull sessions so naturally performed by lead actors Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in and around Mexico City, and on their road trip to self-discovery. Cuaron, seeming more comfortable in his element than in a Hollywood release like the Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Great Expectations, challenges the actors' talents in a handful of takes that last minutes on end, many of which include the camera moving seamlessly through the environment. Even with all these accomplishments, it's still as funny and as titillating as anything out there — maybe because it doesn't have to try so hard to do either. — Derek Armstrong