The film Roma, now showing on Netflix, is based on a man's memories of growing up in a middle-class family in Mexico City. The family's domestic helper, a woman from another race and culture, grows close to the children in her care.
If the structure sounds familiar, it is because home-grown writer director Anthony Chen's prizewinning Ilo Ilo (2013) is based on his recollection of what it was like to be a child who was as close, if not closer, to his Filipino domestic helper as he was to his own mother.
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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 03, 2019, with the headline Netflix film Roma's reality check. Subscribe