Spanglish (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spanglish

A comedy with a language all its own.
Directed by James L. Brooks
Produced by Julie Ansell
James L. Brooks
Richard Sakai
Written by James L. Brooks
Starring Adam Sandler
Téa Leoni
Paz Vega
Cloris Leachman
Thomas Haden Church
Music by Hans Zimmer
Cinematography John Seale
Editing by Richard Marks
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) December 17, 2004
Running time 131 min.
Language English
Spanish
Budget $80,000,000
IMDb profile

Spanglish is a 2004 American film written and directed by James L. Brooks, and starring Adam Sandler, Téa Leoni, Paz Vega, and Cloris Leachman. Hans Zimmer was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. It was released in other countries over the first several months of 2005.

The taglines for this movie were: Every family has a hero. and A comedy with a language all its own.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The movie opens showing a Princeton University admissions board reviewing freshman applications and reading the essays that accompany them. The question for the essay is, Who has been the most influential person in your life? Most are met with unremarkable answers and uninteresting explanations, but one essay stands out: that of Cristina Moreno (Shelbie Bruce), who cites her mother, Flor (Paz Vega), as the most influential person in her life. Cristina proceeds to explain, and the movie begins to unfold.

Flor Moreno, a single mother from Mexico, has crossed the border into the United States with her young daughter Cristina, in search of a better life. Flor’s cousin, already in the States, helps her find an apartment and two low-paying jobs. Cristina attends school and over time becomes fluent in the English language Flor, on the other hand, who is nervous about living in a foreign country in which most of its people speak an alien language, has chosen to seclude herself in the Latina community as she lacks the confidence to break the language barrier. As a result, she continues to conduct her entire American life in Spanish.

Eventually, however, it becomes clear that Flor cannot simply lock herself and Cristina in their own world forever, and so she begins to look for a single job that can provide them with more income. Again, with the help of her cousin as translator, Flor finds a high-paying position as housekeeper in Los Angeles. She finds herself working in the home of the well-to-do Clasky family, which is composed of a successful chef named John (Adam Sandler), his rather immature, self-centered, unemployed, thoroughly unpleasant wife, Deborah (Tea Leoni), their two children Bernice (Sarah Steele) and Georgie (Ian Hyland), and Deborah's mother, retired singer Evelyn Wright (Cloris Leachman).

Immediately Flor is welcomed into the Clasky household. She fills the motherly void that Deborah fails to provide to Bernice and Georgie. Her welcoming presence enlightens Evelyn, and her striking good looks and understanding demeanor make her very attractive to John. Deborah, however, sees Flor a tool to get the dirty work done around the house and disregards her emotions.

Though the Claskys and Flor cannot understand one another because of the language barrier, Flor tries to help out around the house as best she can, even helping Bernice and Georgie during Deborah’s frenetic, childish outbursts. Her job as a housekeeper begins to transform into a live-out domestic work position.

Flor learns that as rich as the Claskys are, they have issues that are equal to, if not worse than, her own. She learns that John is an emotional man (a far cry from the tough, macho Latino men she is accustomed to), and that like herself, Deborah is unable to understand what is best for her family and what makes them happy. To make matters worse, Deborah and John’s marriage is on the rocks. She manages to keep herself aloof from the family’s drama, however this changes when the family decides to rent a summer beach house, requiring Flor to move in with them.

To move in with the Claskys is a big decision for Flor. She wants to keep her independence from the family, however she is in desperate need of the money. Moreover, Flor is proud of her Mexican roots, and does not wish to forget her heritage or the values instilled in her. Wishing for her daughter to be as proud of her roots as she is, she has a hard time taking Christina from the world she knows, and exposing her to the white, upper-class, American life. Flor and Cristina’s relationship is put to the test when Flor reluctantly agrees to accept the live-in domestic position, requiring her to take Christina with her.

The Claskys immediately take to Cristina and treat her like their own. Deborah butters Cristina up and often heaps flattery on her at the expense of her own children, who she usually either ignores or criticizes. Cristina marvels at all that the Claskys have, while Flor watches, forcing herself to be happy for her daughter but watchful of the intrusion into her personal sphere and worried about the outgoing, highly social, impressionable Cristina being taken by Deborah's flattery, glamorous appearance, charm, and wealth.

The real problems begin to surface when Deborah begins to poach on Flor's maternal rights. First, Deborah takes Cristina on a shopping trip without Flor’s permission, and hurts Bernice’s feeling while doing so. John proceeds to give Cristina a large sum of money for sea glass she found on the beach (though as John and Christina explain, she honestly worked for it). Through Christina’s translation, for the first time Flor expresses her discontent with the situation. John is contrite about his error and makes amends to Flor while Deborah is not and only comes up with lame excuses for her behavior, while criticizing Flor.

After recognizing the difficulty in expressing herself to the Claskys verbally, Flor finally decides to learn English to better express herself and to better understand her employers, for Deborah makes minimal effort to understand her. John tries, but does not speak Spanish very well and Deborah is often jealous and resentful of John treating Flor like a person that she is.

In the interim, Deborah manipulates her social connections to get Cristina a scholarship to a very expensive private school, the same school Bernice attends. When Cristina learns this, she is delighted, but Flor is appalled, though Deborah managed to hide that the US$20,000 scholarship was her doing.

When Deborah allows Cristina to sleep over with her friends rather than attending a family affair with her mother as Cristina had originally promised, Flor decides she has had enough and leaves to get her daughter immediately.

Meanwhile, John goes home after work that night to have Deborah reveal that she has been having an affair and is sleeping with their real estate agent. An emotionally shattered John trudges out of the house where he meets Flor, who intended to go to the Clasky household to pick up Cristina and quit her job. The two end up getting into a car and head to John’s restaurant, and it proves an ultimate test for both when they are tempted to engage in an affair. Flor refuses with great difficulty, but not before telling John she loves him. John also expresses his feelings for Flor:

"They should name a gender after you. Looking at you doesn't do it. Staring is the only way that makes any sense. And trying not to blink, so you don't miss anything. And all of that, and you're you. I mean... ok, forgive me. It's just you are drop-dead, crazy gorgeous. So much so that I'm actually considering looking at you again..."


Meanwhile, Evelyn is at the house trying to support her daughter in her time of need, being brutally honest in the process:

"You’re enjoying this, Mother!"

"No, I’m not; not in the way that you think I am anyway..."

"So you are enjoying this?!"

"I'm enjoying being of some use to my daughter..."


After the John and Deborah have a weak "reconciliation", Flor arrives to take Cristina, and after a tearful farewell, Cristina asks her mother if she could stay with the Claskys longer. Flor tells Cristina no, and continues to say that she cannot go to the private school anymore. In turn; Cristina becomes angry with her mother and yells at her on the way to the bus stop. After a moment of silence, Flor tearfully asks Cristina a question that will define the rest of her life: Does she really want to become someone very different from her mother?

Cristina responds by silently boarding the bus with her mother, initially sits away from Flor, then comes close to her mother again and ends up embracing her for the duration of their ride. As this scene plays, Cristina as an adult narrates, acknowledging that “all she is today” rests on the simple fact that she is her mother’s daughter.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Awards

[edit] Premio Juventud

Year Category Person Result
2005 Película más padre Winner

[edit] Golden Globe Award

Year Category Person Result
2005 Best Original Score Hans Zimmer Nominated

[edit] Box Office

This film grossed $55,041,367 worldwide, significantly less than the $80 million production budget.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Films directed by James L. Brooks
Terms of Endearment (1983) • Broadcast News (1987) • I'll Do Anything (1994) • As Good as It Gets (1997) • Spanglish (2004)