Y Tu Mamá También (2001) an intelligent and sensual road movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón and
co-written by him and his brother Carlos is both an acclaimed feature by a director who would
go on to win Oscars and a box office success abroad and in its native Mexico where it was the
biggest grossing local film of all time. Its teenage protagonists Gael García Bernal and Diego
Luna went on to be major stars of global cinema. Yet on its release the film was vilified by
established Mexican critics as a coarse comedy and 'Penthouse fantasy' of youthful lust for an
older woman. Paul Julian Smith's lucid study of the film argues that Y Tu Mamá También not only
addresses with playful seriousness such major issues as gender race class and space which
are yet more urgent now than they were on its release but that the film's apparently casual
aesthetic masks a sophisticated audiovisual style one which brings together popular genre film
and auteurist experiment. Smith suggests Y Tu Mamá También remains an example for world cinema
of how a very local film can connect with a global audience that is ignorant of such niceties.
Combining production and distribution history based on unexplored material held in Mexico City
archives with close textual analysis Smith makes an argument for Cuarón's film as an enduring
masterpiece that hides in plain sight as an ephemeral teen movie.
