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Like all Brooks pieces, Spanglish is a three-character arc with their own travails flavored by some splendid supporting turns. The story is narrated by the daughter of Paz Vega’s Flor (be sure to roll that “r”) as the longest college admission letter ever written. She tells of the fatherless struggles they braved in Mexico and how an illegal trip into the states led them to the Clasky family.

Deborah (Tea Leoni) is a shooting star riding through warp drive. At least, that’s how she talks and it’s usually before her brain has a chance to catch up. Her husband, John (Adam Sandler) is about to be dubbed the greatest chef in America. Their daughter, Bernice (Sarah Steele) could lose a few pounds and Deb is content to remind her about it. John is more the peaceful type, not playing good cop to gain his children’s favor, but because nothing gives him more joy than to see them happy.

Spanglish eases into the stories of these three people; each of them pulling their own chunk of life into the next and leaving very little room for a cursory plot. Brooks is so effortless with the story’s development that to reveal any of its roadblocks would be to spoil the agony of the tough choices they are forced to make and those that they wish they could.

When it comes to family dynamics and the quiet moments that formulate into our own moments of insanity, very few know how to do it better than Brooks. John making an honorable, but potentially misguided decision for Flor’s daughter leads to a confrontation of translation; not just of language and culture but the understanding of why parents react the way they do.

Brooks has focused on mother/daughter relationships in both Terms and As Good As It Gets, but here thrice so and then some. Deb’s meaning-well but disastrous relationship with hers turns to a Barbie doll-like kinship with Flor’s. And when she finds a way to blame all her insecurities on her hard-drinkin’ mother (Cloris Leachman), a former Jazz singer who lives with them, she is reminded bluntly how the past can be such hogwash if you don’t recognize the opportunity to save your future.

Sandler does some of the best work of his career here. Brooks hasn’t necessarily fashioned a character around his persona the way Paul Thomas Anderson did in Punch-Drunk Love. Instead he’s taken the softer side of Sandler and found a way to channel that seething anger into a true, unbridled emotion. The bedroom confrontation he has with Leoni is the best scene Sandler has ever played.

Leoni has always had her share of annoying audiences with deer-in-the-headlight dramatic turns. But she has shown a true flair for comedy. Deborah is the kind of Brooksian turn-your-attention to me neurotic messes that he’s awarded in the past to Shirley MacLaine and Holly Hunter. Leoni’s early motormouth scenes are tailor-fit for Oscar attention and she certainly succeeds in turning us off from her shrewish, insecure habits.

Even more mesmerizing is Paz Vega. Her exquisite beauty does not go unnoticed in the film and Brooks does a smart thing by eliminating our doubts right away as to why such a stunner would not be hooked up by now. Spending a good portion of the movie speaking in her native tongue, it’s incredible how fluently she’s able to communicate to us (if not always John and Deb) without Brooks having to resort to a single subtitle. Flor is not The Great Spanish Hope swooping in to save the Clasky family. In fact, things are probably worse off by the end of the film. But she’s also not a stereotypical tart or ignorant foreigner. She makes an effort to learn the language and the evolving complications of parenthood, but more importantly how the barriers of communication extend all borders.

Spanglish is, above all, a great human comedy. Brooks’ dialogue has such an exquisite complexion that the words will hit you with their originality and later translate into conversation such as the correlation between Flor’s name and the realities two of the characters are forced to choose between. Brooks knows how and when to leave his stories instead of wedging it into a falsely happy corner when a crack in the Earth has emerged. It doesn’t make it less satisfactory, only pragmatic which is often far more satisfying and how often can you say that about films these days? Which is why I am begging Mr. Brooks – please – on behalf of all the movie lovers out there, make more movies. Or take your time. They are certainly worth the wait.

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originally posted: 12/17/04 16:08:29
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