Mamma mia!

>> Y tu mama tambien is an excellent Mexican mélange

by MATTHEW HAYS

Critics hailed last year’s Amores perros as a breakthrough for Mexican cinema. A cool, ferociously violent, darkly humorous trilogy, the film undoubtedly had its merits. But detractors were quick to point out that the film felt a wee bit too derivative of the work of Quentin Tarantino.

Not a shot that could be taken at Y tu mama tambien, a highly original and entirely unpredictable low-budget Mexican wonder, a film that is equal parts buddy movie, road movie, sex comedy, coming-of-age movie and comedy of (teen) manners.
The film begins as a rich young lad (Diego Luna) and his buddy (Gaël Garcia Bernal) say goodbye to their sexy young girlfriends, who are off to Italy for summer break. All full of hormones and left with nowhere to unload them, the two boys turn to general mischief, their libidos overflowing. At one point, the two have a jerking off competition while lying on adjacent diving boards by the pool.

Their hormones are soon fixated on Maribel Verdu, an older woman they encounter at a family wedding. An abundance of alcohol leads the boys to let their proverbial hair down; they ask Verdu along on a summer road trip, thinking she’ll never say yes.

But after her husband dumps her, Verdu surprises the boys by agreeing to accompany them on a beach trip. What follows can only be conveyed via complicated flow chart. The boys’ passions overflow, and Verdu appeals as a bizarre mother figure while also a sex object for the two young men. Plenty of relationship contortions ensue.

Though an entirely different movie (and climate), something about Y tu mama tambien (which loosely translates as the taunt “and your mother, too”) reminded me of last year’s tremendous Icelandic find, 101 Reykjavik. Full of brash energy, shaking up what is ostensibly a familiar genre, Y tu mama tambien is the kind of rare, fresh, pleasing-hybrid movie that renews your faith in filmmaking. :

Y tu mama tambien opens Friday, March 22