Spanglish was advertised as a culture-clash comedy, and indeed for about the first half of the film that’s what it seemed to be. A bit surreal with it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, half-way through the film was morphed into something completely different…

Basically, Spanglish is about a woman called Flor (don’t forget to roll the r sound at the end), who ventures out of Mexico and into America, becoming the new housekeeper of an affluent white American family. She has always tried to keep her Hispanic heritage and culture, and pass these on to her daughter Christina, but in this new environment she finds herself struggling to keep this going. Not helping her is the fact that Deborah Clasky, her employer, is manipulative and pretty close to insane while Deborah’s husband John is far too nice for Flor to be around. Added to this Deborah almost adopts Christina while being a bad mother to her own daughter.

Running alongside this is a subplot with John’s restaurant. They get a great review from a food critic, but then everything starts changing – he’s worked in a restaurant before that got a 4-star review and “everyone changed, accents changed, no-one could get a table anymore…” Unfortunately this sub-plot, which goes a long way to show you what kind of man John is, wasn’t really followed through very well. Still, it’s there.

Anyway, now you know the basic outline, you would probably be expecting a culture clash comedy with plenty of whacky humour (Adam Sandler plays John while Tea Leone is Deborah), and this is what you get at first. Okay it’s not side-splitingly funny but it has its moments and some of the more outlandish moments are genuinely funny. Flor (Paz Vega) seems to fly off the handle quite regularly but seems generally likeable, but her lack of English is a big problem. Translation is provided by her daughter. It’s the two girls – Christina (Shelbie Bruce) and John & Deborah’s daughter Bernice (Sarah Steele) who really steel the scene in this movie, they both give excellent performances. Cloris Leachman as Deborah’s mother was also fun to watch as she was so horrible to her daughter, and quite unashamedly so. I have mixed feelings about Adam Sandler (I thought he was brilliant in “The Wedding Singer” but much of what I’ve seen him in since has relied far too much on toilet humour) and I generally like Tea Leone, but in this film I thought Sandler was good, and Leone somehow just fell apart. The problem was though that, to me, the entire film fell apart half-way through.

Someone obviously decided that it would be a great idea to make the first half a comedy, and the second half a tragedy. This isn’t really how tragic-comedy really works; having elements of each throughout the film is fine (as almost any episode of M*A*S*H proves), but dichotomising the film like this just didn’t work at all for me. What made it even worse was that almost every situation this new tragic stance raised was left completely unresolved at the end of the film. It’s like being halfway through a light meal and suddenly having your plate replaced by something heavy, and then shown a desert menu and then the door. What just happened?! It left me feeling very unsatisfied and somehow cheated by the film.

Overall then, I liked the first half of this film (maybe 4 stars) and disliked the second half (probably 2 stars). Like The Break-Up, part of the problem was the way the film was marketed. In my opinion, if you make people expect a comedy, that’s what you should give them.

So… ultimately disappointing, but a few good things in it.

Other Information

There is one use of strong language and one sex scene (though you don't really see anything and it's very odd!).

Rating - 12A (UK) PG-13 (USA)

The movie runs for 131 minutes and this did seem overlong, some parts really dragged.

Year of release: 2004

Director: James L Brooks (he also directed "As Good As It Gets", which I loved and is on my Top Ten Romantic Comedies below).


Links

Adam Sandler - 50 First Dates
Tea Leone - The Family Man, Fun With Dick and Jane
Cloris Leachman - Scary Movie 4 (apparently! - I don't remember her being in it but IMDB presumably doesn't lie...")


See also:

Top Ten Movies of 2004
Top Ten Comedies
Top Ten Romantic Comedies


Of no particular interest to anyone, this is my 250th movie review on Epinions. Don't ask me why, I suddenly took it into my head to wonder how many I'd done, and it turned out to be 250. As I like meaningless milestones I thought I'd mention it.


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older