James L. Brooks' "Spanglish" is told via voice-over by Christina, who is in college and given the task of writing a report on the most influential person in her life. That would be her mother, she says, and the rest of the film explains why.
Christina's mother is Flor (Paz Vega,) and hard-working Mexican woman whose husband leaves both she and her young daughter. To keep an eye on Christina (played as a child by Shelbie Bruce,) Flor moves the two to America where she hopes to get a less time-consuming job.
That's how Flor comes to work as a maid for the Klansky's, an affluent family consisting of a couple, the two children, the Grandma and a pet dog. As soon as she comes into the house, Flor bangs her face against the spotless sliding glass separating the living room from the deck. This gives one a good idea of the struggles that of each different culture understanding the traits of the other.
John (Adam Sandler) is the low-key and retiring patriarch, who works as a cook at a popular restaurant. Bertie (Sarah Steele) is the overlooked and underappriciated pre-teen daughter. Her younger brother, Georgie (Ian Hyland) fades into the story's background among the presence of the others, as the alcoholic grandmother (Clovis Leachman) tries to keep things in check. The deeply bored lab, Chum, simply waits desperately for someone to drop what they're doing and play ball.
The center of the chaos is mom Deborah (Téa Leoni,) a manic manipulator who rushes frantically around the house as if she's a twitch away from a nervous breakdown. She resembles a caricature of people one knows whose pitiable and desperate antics make you wonder how the people close to them remain out of the psych ward.
Deberah, intentionally or not, puts her family on edge and emotionally degrades her daughter, as well as treating her bewildered husband as if he is the sole cause of her neurosis. Most bewildered of all is Flor, who folds herself placed directly in American familial dysfunction.
Leoni, whose character feels the need to have constant attention, must do good job, since the viewer wants someone to force a couple valium down her throat at the worst of her depressive episodes.
The film's strong point is the dynamics between the two families, but the script has a problem with subtlety. One example of this is a a scene preceding Deborah's grotesque manipulation of Bertie, which she rationalizes as motivation rather than abuse.
In the next part, Brooks insults our intelligence by having Sandler's character yell loudly and dramatically the exact thing the audience is thinking, as the relationship with Flor is awkwardly developed.Spontaneous character-viewer reactions can be funny, this was only frustrating. Did the director add moments of surprising unsubtltey because he felt the audience was not clever to draw their own conclusions?
The acting and the interactions were interesting, as was the surprising use of humor combined with the drama, but the final stand over our country's consumerism unsettled me. I am not an American with a chip on my shoulder, nor does this have much to do with America at all.
Vega's character was strong and good-natured, but her fierce pleading for her daughter to be culturally "Mexican" did not seem heroic. It was may have been ultimately for the good, but in a way seemed almost similar to Deberah's creepy attempt to coddle her 'ideal' daughter.
Do you fight manipulation toward children by trying to make them feel bound to their parents, to pushing them in the opposite direction toward where your morals stand? Do you tearfully beg them to be their 'mother's daughter?' Whether her moral stance is best for her or not, the way she got there was disturbing to me, and didn't seem so different from Deborah's manic cries for respect.
"Spanglish" was worth watching, but ultimately too obvious to get a very high review. I consider Brooks' other movie, "As Good as it Gets," to be the superior film. Both have interesting characters, but "As Good as it Gets" has an easier time slipping moral lessons into the viewer's brains carefully (Rated PG-13.) ***
Note: I get the impression that "Spanglish"'s director has a special fondness for dogs. Between "as Good as it Get"'s ewok-like Verdell and the supremely playful lab Chum, his canines have more screen time and personality than the average character's pet.
Recommendation- For another look at the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship set within the latino culture, watch Real Women have Curves.
Christina's mother is Flor (Paz Vega,) and hard-working Mexican woman whose husband leaves both she and her young daughter. To keep an eye on Christina (played as a child by Shelbie Bruce,) Flor moves the two to America where she hopes to get a less time-consuming job.
That's how Flor comes to work as a maid for the Klansky's, an affluent family consisting of a couple, the two children, the Grandma and a pet dog. As soon as she comes into the house, Flor bangs her face against the spotless sliding glass separating the living room from the deck. This gives one a good idea of the struggles that of each different culture understanding the traits of the other.
John (Adam Sandler) is the low-key and retiring patriarch, who works as a cook at a popular restaurant. Bertie (Sarah Steele) is the overlooked and underappriciated pre-teen daughter. Her younger brother, Georgie (Ian Hyland) fades into the story's background among the presence of the others, as the alcoholic grandmother (Clovis Leachman) tries to keep things in check. The deeply bored lab, Chum, simply waits desperately for someone to drop what they're doing and play ball.
The center of the chaos is mom Deborah (Téa Leoni,) a manic manipulator who rushes frantically around the house as if she's a twitch away from a nervous breakdown. She resembles a caricature of people one knows whose pitiable and desperate antics make you wonder how the people close to them remain out of the psych ward.
Deberah, intentionally or not, puts her family on edge and emotionally degrades her daughter, as well as treating her bewildered husband as if he is the sole cause of her neurosis. Most bewildered of all is Flor, who folds herself placed directly in American familial dysfunction.
Leoni, whose character feels the need to have constant attention, must do good job, since the viewer wants someone to force a couple valium down her throat at the worst of her depressive episodes.
The film's strong point is the dynamics between the two families, but the script has a problem with subtlety. One example of this is a a scene preceding Deborah's grotesque manipulation of Bertie, which she rationalizes as motivation rather than abuse.
In the next part, Brooks insults our intelligence by having Sandler's character yell loudly and dramatically the exact thing the audience is thinking, as the relationship with Flor is awkwardly developed.Spontaneous character-viewer reactions can be funny, this was only frustrating. Did the director add moments of surprising unsubtltey because he felt the audience was not clever to draw their own conclusions?
The acting and the interactions were interesting, as was the surprising use of humor combined with the drama, but the final stand over our country's consumerism unsettled me. I am not an American with a chip on my shoulder, nor does this have much to do with America at all.
Vega's character was strong and good-natured, but her fierce pleading for her daughter to be culturally "Mexican" did not seem heroic. It was may have been ultimately for the good, but in a way seemed almost similar to Deberah's creepy attempt to coddle her 'ideal' daughter.
Do you fight manipulation toward children by trying to make them feel bound to their parents, to pushing them in the opposite direction toward where your morals stand? Do you tearfully beg them to be their 'mother's daughter?' Whether her moral stance is best for her or not, the way she got there was disturbing to me, and didn't seem so different from Deborah's manic cries for respect.
"Spanglish" was worth watching, but ultimately too obvious to get a very high review. I consider Brooks' other movie, "As Good as it Gets," to be the superior film. Both have interesting characters, but "As Good as it Gets" has an easier time slipping moral lessons into the viewer's brains carefully (Rated PG-13.) ***
Note: I get the impression that "Spanglish"'s director has a special fondness for dogs. Between "as Good as it Get"'s ewok-like Verdell and the supremely playful lab Chum, his canines have more screen time and personality than the average character's pet.
Recommendation- For another look at the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship set within the latino culture, watch Real Women have Curves.
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