Sort of undeniable, I guess, but all that rigor basically amounted to arthouse auteur Eighth Grade for me. Same hang-ups, really: an angelic lead character defined by a doomed passiveness, an oddly cherry-picked milieu, and any credibility in rendering time and place drowned out by the uncomfortable, breathing-over-the-shoulder proximity of an authorial voice that's equal parts worrywart and acquiescent. Cuarón is at least honest in being infatuated with his own ability to overwhelm and transport a viewer, but the drama never grows beyond its conception, devoid of any emotional reading until it puts one on everything all at once. A boy playing with his toys.