
PLOT:
Flor Moreno (Paz Vega), a poor, Mexican, single mother gets hired as the housekeeper for John (Adam Sandler) and Deborah Clasky (Téa Leoni), their kids, Bernice (Sarah Steele) and Georgie (Ian Hyland), and Deborah’s mother Evelyn Wright (Cloris Leachman), a rich, white American family. Flor’s daughter, Cristina is played by Shelbie Bruce. Flor, Cristina, and John are very likeable while Deborah is mean, self-centered, and apathetic to her daughter. Evelyn is a carefree drunk.
Flor doesn’t speak English so Cristina translates for her when she needs to talk to the family. Bilingual, skinnier, and overall kind, Cristina impresses Deborah, whom she begins to treat like her own daughter, taking Cristina shopping, getting her hair done, enrolling her in a private school, and showing her more love than her own daughter.
Flor becomes unhappy when it appears that Cristina is influenced by Deborah. This is in part because she wants Cristina to keep in touch with her roots, and partly because Deborah is overstepping her bounds by acting like Cristina’s mother. Flor objects to the family’s overreaching with Cristina to which John is apologetic.
Flor learns English so she can communicate with them better wherein John and Flor talk more and become closer.
When Evelyn realizes that her daughter is having an affair and that her marriage is in trouble, she sobers up and tells Deborah to knock it off because she’ll never get another man as good as John. As Flor heads to their house, Deborah confesses to John that she cheated on him. John walks out, and runs into Flor on the way and they go to his restaurant to “hang out”. They have the “greatest conversation of their lives” and confess their love for one another, but Flor leaves and John never mentions that Deborah cheated on him.
Flor quits and takes her daughter home. She tells Cristina that she doesn’t want her to go to the private school anymore either, upsetting Cristina and causing her to scream that Flor is ruining her life. Flor tells Cristina that it is time for her to decide the most important question of her life: “Is what you want for yourself to become something very different than me?”. Cristina doesn’t respond and on their bus ride home she initially sits away from Flor, but ends up embracing her for the duration of their ride.
The film ends with Cristina as an adult, years later, acknowledging that “all she is today” rests on the simple fact that she is her mother’s daughter.
REVIEW:
Adam Sandler films tend to be more on the slapstick side of comedy, and not so much on the more serious side of things, yet Spanglish, starts out as a light hearted happy film, but ends up a borderline chick flick.
The film’s plot centers around a Mexican immigrant (we’ll say she is) who can’t speak English and becomes the nanny for a well to do chef and his obnoxious, talkative wife. As the film progresses, we get to know more about each of the characters, as they are extremely well developed. We get a conflict based in infidelity, but are left with an ending that feels a bit empty.
Storywise, this is a very strong film, capable of hanging with the “artsy-fartsty” films, but because of it being a comedy, it doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
Adam Sandler turns in a mature performance, yet maintains a bit of his “Sandler-ness”. I was mostly impressed with how he handled his character’s conflict over becoming a 4-star chef and wanting to avoid shunning the little people. He also impressed me with how he portrayed the emotions dealing with his wife cheating on him and the feeling he has for the nanny.
Paz Vega had quite the introduction to US audiences with this film, even if she does look like Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. I’m not sure, but I think she took a page out of Antonio Banderas’ book, and didn’t learn English until she got an American film role. Having said that, it is quite possible that the scenes in which we see her learning English were genuine. If that is the case, then her performance is that more impressive.
Tea Leoni started out as a decent character, but as the film progressed, she took a downturn. What kind of woman bosses her husband around, cheats on him, more or less calls her daughter fat, basically steals her nanny’s daughter, and just makes everything about her? Then when she thinks that Sandler runs into the arms of Vega, she gets all emotional about it, knowing full well that she had been cheating on him for 11 weeks. Stuff like that can earn you a spot on the most despised list.
The word “spanglish” wasn’t an everyday word, I believe, until this film was released. I cannot belive that with the cultural impact this picture has had that it didn’t do that well. I guess now that I think about it, I can. There are more than a few films that bombed at the box office on;y to go on and become cult hits on video or DVD.
Spanglish is one of those films that dances a fine line between comedy and drama, occasionally tipping over to one side or the other, but never getting to the point of over-seriousness, even in the serious parts. This really surprised me, because I didn’t know what to expect from it. Pleasant surprises are always good, and I hope that after watching this you’ll be as pleasantly surprised and entertained as I was.
4 out of 5 stars










