Although Y tu mamá también deals with a topic that has been chewed many times, Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Harry Potter and Prisoner from Azkaban) gives much more than just a story about the (sexual) upbringing of two teenagers. With this film, he goes further and deeper than the usual Hollywood-hungry stories of teenage fantasies that the audience should consider controversial and entertaining, and thus creates an extremely explicit but natural story about the clumsiness and intertwining of sex, life and death.
So its not surprising that there was a concern when three years after the release of Y tu mamá también, Cuarón took over the director's role for the third installment of our favorite childhood wizard Harry Potter, right on the part of the story when it gets darker and more serious. Parents believed that Cuarón would send young wizards to the road of sexual revelation. Nevertheless, he proved to be a versatile director unencumbered by his previous achievements, sending Sandra Bullock later into space, for which he was crowned with an Oscar.
Y tu mamá también depicts a couple of days in the lives of two adolescents: Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal) are saying goodbye to their girls, who are going on a summer trip to Italy and leaving the two to covet over them. It's summer and Tenoch and Juliet are bored. Tenoch is the son of a politician, so the two of them find themselves at a fancy wedding and meet Maribel Verdú, the wife of the Tenoche cousin.
In order to gain her, they invent a story of a trip to a fictional beach called "Heaven's Mouth" and invite her to go with them. She initially refuses them first but, after she finds out that her husband is cheating, the next day she agrees to go with them to their fictional journey, and on this five-day trip. The three of them are very well acquainted, physically and mentally, and Luisa shows incredible high threshold for immature adolescent outbreaks. The rest of the action takes place in the car and on the road.
On the surface this is a simple story - two 17-year-olds are trying to make all their sexual fantasies come true, and the older woman for some miracle agreed to do it. They will learn that women are not trophies, how to respect their partners, be gentle, and that "the greatest pleasure is to provide satisfaction". Boys are all hilariously ridiculous, but it seems that her words come to their brains blurred with cigarettes, grass, and alcohol. However, this is not the only side of the story that opens to us. The abused rambling in the car often abruptly interrupts the narrator's attention to something from the inner life of the protagonist or from the immediate environment. The frequent theme of these reviews is death and tragedy, abruptly interrupted, and the cold objectivity of the narrator is in sharp contrast to the extremely hot atmosphere in the car.
Thanks to these short stories, the viewer is better acquainted with characters and grasps some of their motives and gets a more complete background story. These interruptions and explanations of the circumstances in which the characters are found don't disturb the story, but fit perfectly. It creates a bitter-sweet atmosphere and a picture of Mexico that contrasts with well-off protagonists left to hedonism. These brief insights show us the political, economic and social image of Mexico in the 1990s, completely ignored by sexual driven protagonists.
Y tu mamá también is full of sexual energy, the immaturity of the two protagonists is more than evident, and their machism is childish and funny, but sympathetic. The whole film actually exudes nature, so the viewer can ask, on several occasions, whether this film is a script or it's one big improvisation.
Chemistry among the three protagonists is immeasurable, which is partly due to the fact that Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna have been best friends, and their Julio and Tenoch appear so real on screen too. However, everything in its entirety connects Maribel Verdú with Luisa.
She brings a dose of maturity and tragicity in her story, her sadness is ubiquitous. She is closest to having a storyteller of all characters, because Tenoch and Juliet want to convey the wisdom of life that she has managed to gather over the past ten years, the more she has spent in the world from them.
In the end, the film turns out to have had its motive for it or at least Cuarón gives the viewer the freedom to interpret it so. Also, thanks to her, we are building homoerotic tensions between the two protagonists alluded to by the director, which they don't want to admit.
In addition to wondering why Luisa is holding life lessons for those horny kids, we can ask ourselves what the director is doing. Why is he telling us a story that is seemingly unrelated to the protagonists, but which perfectly fit into the general narrative? Did he deceive us with his film story of sex in the story of Mexico? Nevertheless, he does not ignore his characters and gives them space to fight, grow and develop, and enjoy the spectacle of the top story.
Cuarón, ultimately, with Y tu mamá también creates a political and social commentary, simultaneously showing the untouched reality of life. In fact, we can thank Hollywood for not allowing such raw films to be made because Cuarón was forced to return to native Mexico and managed with a lot of flavor in the midst of all this nudity and excessive
hedonism to present the viewer with an unamericized story of the beauty of the tragic life.
Note: this was my translation from croatian to english from Ziher hr article 'Seks, droge i životne lekcije : Y tu mamá también, I.Kolar