Roma Review: 6 Ups & 2 Downs

3. Alfonso Cuarón's Meticulous Direction

While it's easy to conflate Roma's cinematography and direction together as they were both conceived by the same person, it's fair to say that without such a sure-handed approach to the movie's style and tone, it could so easily have ended up a gorgeous yet hollow exercise.

As mentioned, he arguably holds on some sequences just a tad too long, but for the most part, Cuarón makes the choices that best suit the material as an intimate, small-scale story projected against an epic, visually stunning backdrop.

It's easy for this dialogue-sparse approach to feel empty and cold, but miraculously, Roma manages to leave a lot of the critical thinking to the audience yet is still a fundamentally warm-hearted movie.

It goes without saying that Cuarón will be nominated for a Best Director Oscar, and you know what? He's got a damn good shot of winning it for the second time, too.