A gratuitous sex and urination gross out. This review contains mild spoilers.
I'm no prude; I have no problem with movies that deal with sex in a frank manner FOR A PURPOSE (e.g., The Piano Teacher, which I happened to enjoy) but Y Tu Mama Tambien might as well be called a soft porn road flick instead of independent cinema.
The fundamental premise, that the beautiful, intelligent and considerably older Luisa agrees to accompany teenage knuckleheads Julio and Tenoch on a sojourn to an unknown beach, is totally unbelievable. Luisa is married to Tenoch's adult cousin and she hasn't seen Tenoch in about a decade, and she's never laid eyes on Julio before. In the scene where the three of them meet, the guys come off as completely silly and juvenile, i.e., not the kind of boys most women like Luisa would go on a long jaunt with. Basically they ask her like this:
"Hey, um, wanna drop everything in your life right now and go for a real long multi-day drive with us to a beach?"
"Okay."
Um, right.
The director also employs a strange device in the form of frequent voice-over narration to convey information, during which all other sound oddly ceases.
And if gratuitous sex scenes, frontal nudity and bodily excretions are your idea of a good ol' time at the movies, then run right out and see this film. Within the first hour we get to watch: a flatulence duel; each guy graphically boink his girlfriend; each guy take a leak (in the most graphic depictions I've ever seen, and both times it has nothing to do with the plot); our heroes appraise each other's penises (with some frontal nudity so we GET THE POINT); our heroine squat to relieve herself in an open field; and a sort of masturbation duel that is unrealistic to the point of ridiculousness and culminates in a gross- out denouement that had people in the audience I saw it with groaning.
Mr. Cuaron seems to have stumbled upon a brand new style of filmmaking which we could dub "toiletism". Most directors have enough faith in us to assume we possess sufficient common sense to know that the characters relieve themselves at some point, but Mr. Cuaron wants to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that we know the characters in his movie pee and fart. Hence, he shows us. If this guy had made The Maltese Falcon, we'd have to watch Sam Spade piss a few times just to make sure we remember he has a bladder.
If tastelessness is your gig, then by all means see this movie. If, like me, that isn't your cup of tea, give it a miss.