Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

dir Alfonso Cuarón

Much like the hormonally and sexually charged relationship between Julio (Gabriel García Bernal), Tenoch (Diego Luna), and Ana (Ana López), the film itself echoes the constant fits and starts that take place as the boys scheme game for pussy, inadvertently turning to each other. Though in the end it was great to finally see Julio and Tenoch kiss --downright hot, actually-- it seems the film winds a tedious path just to make it to this pivotal point. In this base sense, Y Tu Mamá También is an elaborately executed gay-for-pay flick. What with all the explicit sex talk between the principles --on and on and on, just do it already!-- and the flashes of bushy boys and not-so-bushy girls, the movie's definitely got one thing on its mind.

Fully considered though, Y Tu Mamá También is a coming of age story of two friends in which an older, scorned woman --the object of both boys' desires-- becomes the catalyst of an underlying sexual tension between them that, having been brought to the fore, comes to disintegrate their friendship. Though it recalls the great road-trip, buddy-pic treatise of Kerouac descent, those considerations often take a back seat to the film's other prescient drivers: for Tenoch and Julio we're seeing the yearnings of the flesh taking shape as naive, post-adolescent conquest and its attending, unanticipated emotional repercussions, while for Ana it materializes as revenge-fucking --payback to an unfaithful spouse-- coinciding with an opening up of self-discovery which belies an untold secret she carries, leading to a final reveal.

The film strives to dig deep to reveal truth beneath its depiction of the materialistic, mundane surroundings and circumstances of its characters. Despite achieving moments of sheer serendipitous coincidence and being peppered with allegories throughout, even when taken together with the warmth shared by the three principles, the work still resounds oddly dry, with unmet desires, and unquenched thirsts.

Y Tu Mamá También trailer: