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The Mexican Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences hosted the 61st edition of their Ariel Awards on Monday evening, where Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Alejandra Márquez Abella’s “The Good Girls” stood out among the winners.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Cuarón’s “Roma” scooping best picture is that it’s only the second of his films to win an Ariel award, and the first to be nominated for best picture. In 1992 “Sólo con Tu Pareja” was nominated for best first work and screenplay, and won best original story. In 2001 he chose not to submit his Oscar-nominated classic “Y tu mamá también” in protest at the Academy’s voting practices.

By the end of the Monday evening however, “Roma” netted 10 prizes, including best director, supporting actress, photography, screenplay, editing, sound, art design, visual effects and special effects to go along with the best picture prize.

A festival darling over the past year,...

The economy’s a mess but Sofía’s hair is perfect in Alejandra Márquez Abella’s “The Good Girls,” a film that is all surface in a way that is not, for once, a negative. The primped, powdered and shoulder-padded story of the fall from grace of a 1980s Mexican socialite is all about buffed and lustrous surfaces — poreless skin, laquered nails, silken fabrics — all the veneer of social superiority that money can buy. It’s an illusion, of course, that such a thin plating of wealth offers any protection against the changeable climate outside. But it’s such a seductive lie that the vacuous, complacent people thus ensheathed are prone to believe it, forgetting that their glaze of perfection is as brittle as the burnt-sugar topping on a crème brûlée. It’s delicious when it cracks.

We’re introduced to Sofía (Ilse Salas) in fragments: her hair being lathered...