“No matter what they tell you – women, we are always alone.” That’s a cry that echoes through writer/director Alfonso Cuarón’s gently sweeping , awards-tipped epic , his first Mexican-based movie since 2001’s Y Tu Mamá También Inspired by memories of his childhood in Mexico City, and bristling with historical upheavals that mirror the domestic traumas (the Corpus Christi massacre of 1971 is shockingly restaged), it’s a bravura evocation of time and place, as richly detailed as the artfully designed worlds of Children of Men or A Little Princess. But at its heart are two women – both embattled yet resilient, and from very different backgrounds – who are left to clean up the mess after being abandoned or betrayed by the men in their lives.