Roma

With lavish photography and luscious sound design, Cuarón's nostalgia-infused rendition of '70s Mexico City also feels self-indulgent. His story focuses on the maid of an upper middle class family, but the starry-eyed resilience on display hides a more somber social naivete: apart from the grossly sexist pregnancy arc, the character barely exists outside of her dedication to her job. Seeing as the film moves from her point of view (i.e. there is no excuse of a young Alfonso acting as a faulty narrator), it all looks like she fully revels in serving her employers, which is basically a poor show of blind entitlement. Likewise, the social unrest of the times is merely used as a tool to spice up the public's apprehension of the intimate trials falling upon the household. Doubling down on the brazen cinematography, this makes for larger-than-life situations which are also meekly exploitative. Yet 2018 cannot afford the apolitical luxury of a domestic Gravity.