The Fundy Film Society

Y tu mamà también

Ribald teen sex comedies don’t usually make for typical art house fare, but this coming-of-age tale – which manages to be witty, poignant, politically astute and explicitly concerned with sex – has been racking up awards and accolades at major festivals around the world, while also breaking box-office records in its native Mexico. Winner of the Best Screenplay and Best Actor awards (shared by the film’s two leads) at the Venice International Film Festival, Y Tu Mama Tambien is a shockingly modern, wildly funny road movie that follows the journey from adolescence to adulthood taken by two 17-year-old friends one hot summer week. Tenoch (Diego Luna, from Before Night Falls) and Julio (Gael García Bernal, from Amoresperros) are constantly on the make to quench their raging hormones in as many ways as possible. When their girlfriends go away on vacation, Julio and Tenoch make a play for Luisa (Maribel Verdu), the stunningly gorgeous 28-year-old wife of Tenoch’s cousin, by inviting her on a trip to a beach that doesn’t actually exist. When Luisa learns of her husband’s tacky infidelities, she spitefully takes the boys up on their offer. Faithful to the requirements of the teen road movie genre, the film includes more than its share of steamy sex, and does so in a myriad of combinations. Evolving seamlessly into an intelligent essay on the lives of young people, social classes, and adolescent discovery, the film is also more attentive to the homo-sexual desire that latently creeps through fearful hetero libidos, a theme constantly toyed with in American buddy films and teen fare like American Pie 2 but never fully explored. The film’s extremely impressive production values and slick visual style are thanks to writer/director Alfonso Cuarón – responsible for the highly acclaimed versions of Great Expectations and A Little Princess – as well as the brilliant cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Ali, Sleepy Hollow). Y Tu Mama Tambien was the 2002 Golden Globe Winner for Best Foreign Language Film.

“Y Tu Mama Tambien, with a cocky smile, puts the fear and lust back in sex.” – Kevin Courrier, Box Office Magazine

“Fast, funny, unafraid of sexuality. A wild orchestration of comedy and melodrama.” – Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times