Spanglish

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      If the movie business has been good to James L. Brooks, it's because Brooks has been very good for the business of movies. His knack for producing commercially successful work has allowed him a luxury of time and money that few directors command. Brooks's track record includes hits like As Good As It Gets and Terms of Endearment, his directorial debut in 1983. Brooks also has the Midas touch as a film and television producer; his résumé includes Jerry Maguire and Big, and such landmark TV series as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Simpsons. Perhaps that's why Sony felt comfortable enough to allocate a rumoured $100-million budget to Spanglish, a character-driven romantic comedy of the sort typically relegated to art houses.

      Despite the hefty price tag, there are no CGI monsters and the only on-screen explosions are verbal. Initially, the film focuses on a young Mexican woman named Flor, played by the Spanish actor Paz Vega, who has come to Los Angeles, like so many others, to work as a housekeeper for rich white people. With her daughter Cristina in tow, Flor is a fish out of water in the beige hills of Bel-Air, and most of the early comedy is generated by this premise. The film changes gears, however, and soon becomes a study in miscommunication, not only in language but also in the realms of marriage and parenting. The latter themes are expertly fleshed out by Téa Leoni as Deborah Clasky, a neurotically self-absorbed yet self-loathing Beverly Hills housewife. Here Leoni, who demonstrated a gift for physical comedy in David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster and in her own short-lived TV series The Naked Truth, gives the performance of her career.

      This is also Adam Sandler's most convincing and compelling performance to date. He's likable, and amazingly shtick-free, as top chef John Clasky, a calmly rational husband and father trying his best to keep it real. The most subtly moving scenes, however, involve Sandler and Vega; and these provide much-needed counterpoint to Leoni's hissy fits. To call this Vega's English-language-film debut may be inaccurate, as she speaks mostly Spanish, letting her Americanized daughter Cristina (also the film's narrator) translate. The camera loves Vega, who last captivated audiences in Sex and Lucia, and her Latin looks beg comparison to that other Spanish beauty, Penélope Cruz.

      Spanglish is also a great vehicle for veteran Cloris Leachman as Deborah's mother, whose drunken outbursts serve as comic relief in the Clasky's household. It seems strange, however, when her character conveniently becomes a sober, Yoda-like mentor late in the film. This and the use of constant narration in place of elegant exposition are minor flaws that make the film merely amusing when it could have been profound. Instead of a cross-cultural, pan-generational comedy about the ugly underside of the middle classes, we merely get the sitcom version. And that, sadly, is about as good as it gets.

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