Before creating masterpieces like Y Tu Mama Tambien and last year's Children of Men along with being part of the Three Amigos gang that included fellow Mexican directors Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro. Alfonso Cuaron, like many Mexican directors before and since, started out working in TV including soap operas while serving as an assistant director for films all over Latin America. Then in 1991, Cuaron would make his very first feature about a playboy who catches the AIDS virus as he hopes to end his life along with a flight attendant he just met. The film was called Solo con tu Pareja (A Tale of Love & Hysteria).

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron with a script he co-wrote with brother Carlos, the film is a sex-comedy of sorts about AIDS and such when a playboy's life is crashed down as he finds an unlikely companion in a woman who too, wants to end her life. With a cast that includes Daniel Giminez Cacho, Claudia Ramirez, Astrid Hadad, and Dobrina Liubomirova. Solo con tu Pareja is a funny, smart, sexy comedy from Alfonso Cuaron and company.

Tomas (Daniel Giminez Cacho) by day, works as an advertising agent coming up with slogans for products. By night, he is a womanizer who often beds many women around him. Whether it would be his boss Gloria (Isabel Benet), or a bride at a wedding. Then one day, Tomas is sick as he calls his doctor and neighbor Mateo (Luis de Icaza) for a check-up. Tomas visits Tomas as he catches the eye of Mateo's nurse Sylvia (Dobrina Liubomirova), who checks his blood for an AIDS test. Tomas scores a date with Sylvia while Mateo and his wife Teresa (Astrid Hadad) would go out of town for a conference. Tomas brings Sylvia to his apartment when he learned that Gloria was coming about a possible slogan for jalapenos.

Borrowing Mateo's apartment, he brings Gloria for a brief meeting yet with Sylvia waiting in his apartment. Tomas walks outside of his apartment outside to walk on the ledge. In between his and Mateo's apartment, Tomas finds himself watching a young woman named Clarissa (Claudia Ramirez) practicing her sign language for her work as a flight attendant. Yet, Tomas' philandering with both Sylvia and Gloria begins to take its toll. The result of this philandering cost Tomas his job and Sylvia was upset disappointed for the fact that he wasn't the lover he claims to be. The sight of seeing Clarissa has changed Tomas, despite the fact that she has a fiancee named Carlos (Ricardo Dalmacci). Whenever Tomas tries to do his usual things, including running naked down the stairs to get the paper. He would embarrass himself, even more in front of Clarissa.

Tomas finally engages Clarissa in a brief conversation where he again embarrass himself. The presence of Clarissa has given Tomas a new lease on life as he tells Mateo. When Mateo and Teresa are out for another conference, Tomas accompanies a couple of Japanese tourists (Toshiro Hisaki & Carlos Nakasone) to Mexico City where they engage in a drunken party. The next morning, one of Tomas' lovers Lucia (Claudia Fernandez) found a paper in which, he is revealed to be HIV positive. When Tomas wakes up and finds the paper, he is in total shock. Just as he had hoped to make changes, he realizes that his life is over.

Depressed over what had happened and everything, he keeps trying to contact Mateo about what had happened. Unfortunately, Mateo and Teresa are in a party with the Japanese tourists, fellow doctors, and Sylvia. Hoping to kill himself, Tomas leaves messages to Mateo on what he plans to do. Mateo however, is drunk when Sylvia reveals the truth about his AIDS results. With Tomas ready to commit suicide, Clarissa arrives seeing that his door was open. Clarissa asks Tomas to find her keys that she left in her apartment. Tomas decides to enter through her outside window where he finds something that Clarissa shouldn’t be seeing. After giving her keys, he gives a warning but what she sees angers her. Knowing that Tomas wants to kill himself, she decides to join him. When Mateo finally receives his messages, he learns what Sylvia had told him as Mateo and his entourage hope to stop Tomas, who along with Clarissa leaves to the Latin America tower to kill themselves.

Given the fact that it was the early 90s and AIDS had become a very serious issue at that time, the fact that the film is an AIDS comedy is pretty radical while some of its humor might seem to shock people who are very sensitive. To Alfonso Cuaron and his brother Carlos, the film isn't about AIDS but rather about a man whose own lifestyle gets the best of him. Even as he starts to question it himself after falling for a flight attendant in the middle of his philandering. The film's plot is simple yet told in a very funny way with the humor being spot-on through the misadventures of Tomas' life. Even some of the dialogue and events that drive the plot is well-written by the Cuaron brothers.

Then there's Alfonso Cuaron's direction which is just as enigmatic and stylized that would define his work in the years to come. The film, like his 2001 masterpiece Y Tu Mama Tambien opens with a couple having sex to illustrate the story. Unlike his masterpiece, Solo con tu Pareja's approach to sex isn't as explicit where it's done with great humor. Even the scenes of Tomas running down the stairs and back up to get the paper is one of the most memorable moments. Then there's the scenes involving suicide where it's also done in great humor like in Hal Ashby's classic film Harold & Maude (whose Mexican film poster makes a cameo in Y Tu Mama Tambien). Yet, Cuaron's direction with its stylish camera work, scene compositions, and shots of Mexico City is breathtaking. While it's not perfect, it shows of what was to come from this great director.

Helping Cuaron in his imagery is a longtime collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki. Serving as a cinematographer for every film Cuaron did (minus Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban), Lubezki's colorful imagery in the film's interior scenes are breathtaking with its use of green colors and lights to complement the look of both Tomas' spacious apartment and the naturalistic tone of Mateo's apartment. Lubezki's cinematography along with additional camera work by another fellow Mexican cinematographer in Rodrigo Prieto (serving as a second-unit director & second-unit photography) is just amazing including a lot of the exterior settings for Mexico City including the ariel shots.

Production designer Brigitte Broch (who is also the longtime production designer for another Mexican auteur, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) helps create the film's unique imagery with the greenish-look of the apartment building that Tomas lives while the home of Mateo is filled with plants, a fish tank, and everything that looks earthy. Costume designer Maria Estela Fernandez does some excellent work in the film's costume weather it's the designer-dress that Sylvia wore on her date to the flight-attendant uniform that Clarissa wears. Alfonso Cuaron and editor Luis Patlan do some excellent work in the film's editing whether it was doing some slow-motion cuts to convey an emotion or jump-cuts in some of the film's car sequences. Sound editor Rene Ruiz Ceron does some excellent work in recreating the sound of airplanes to convey the atmosphere that Tomas is being drawn to in relation to Clarissa.

The film's soundtrack featuring an original score by Carlos Warman with some traditional, Mexican-folk music is often filled with mariachi songs and most of all, classical music. The classical cuts featuring the works of Mozart and Francois Couperin are excellent to convey the dream-like feel of the film as well as a theme for the presence of Clarissa to Tomas. The classical stuff played on the film is memorable and enchanting.

The film's cast features some notable small performances from Luz Maria Jerez & Claudia Fernandez as two of Tomas' lovers, Ricardo Dalmacci as Clarissa's boyfriend Carlos, and the duo of Toshiro Hisaki & Carlos Nakasone as the Japanese tourists. Isabel Benet is good as Tomas' boss Gloria as is Dobrina Liubomirova as the sexy Sylvia who are both disappointed with his love-making skills after hearing so much about him. Astrid Hadad is excellent as Mateo's wife Teresa, who was the first person who suggest Tomas to take an interest in Clarissa before he even met her. Luis de Icaza is also excellent as Mateo, the doctor who tries to warn Tomas about his philandering and the trouble it would lead him.

Claudia Ramirez makes a wonderful impression as Clarissa. Ramirez's sensual innocence is really intoxicating as she brings a beauty to the film as a woman who has it all until an event that shakes her innocence completely. Ramirez definitely sells her despair as she and Cacho have great chemistry. Daniel Giminez Cacho is brilliant in his role as the philandering Tomas. Cacho is great in the way he does comedy and drama by being this very flawed individual with a very dangerous lifestyle. When he starts to make a change, his character becomes sympathetic but also performed in a funny way that he's a character that's enjoyable. Cacho, who is famous for his work in Pedro Almodovar's La Mala Educacion and being the narrator in Y Tu Mama Tambien, gives a phenomenal performance.

The film was originally released in late 1991 in which, it eventually won a Silver Ariel (the Mexican equivalent to the Oscars) for Best Original Screenplay despite a lot of controversy of the film. Yet, Alfonso Cuaron did nab the attention of American director Sydney Pollock who got Cuaron to shoot a segment for the Showtime neo-noir series Fallen Angels in 1993. Two years later, Cuaron reached critical acclaim for his sophomore feature in a remake of A Little Princess where it marked the beginning of a glorious film career. In 2006, months before the release of Children of Men, Solo con tu Pareja was finally released in the U.S. to acclaim as people noted the potential Cuaron brought in his debut film that was later followed by a DVD release from Criterion.

While nowhere near as great as masterpieces like Y Tu Mama Tambien or Children of Men, along with other films like A Little Princess and Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban. Solo con tu Pareja is still an enchanting, funny debut film from Alfonso Cuaron and company. Fans of Cuaron's no doubt, will find this film as a nice starting point into his visual language and such. Even in where his later films, fans would see where he would get a few of his ideas from his first feature. In the end, Solo con tu Pareja is an excellent debut feature from Alfonso Cuaron.

Alfonso Cuaron Films:

A Little Princess (1995):

http://www.epinions.com/content_147047091844

Great Expectations (1998):

http://www.epinions.com/content_140014161540

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001):

http://www.epinions.com/content_118471757444

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004):

http://www.epinions.com/content_142702710404

Children of Men (2006):

http://www.epinions.com/content_303047609988


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age