Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I love James L. Brooks films. BROADCAST NEWS is a favorite of mine, and any time he actually gets it together to make a new movie, I’m interested without knowing a thing about it. I’ll admit, though... except for the involvement of the super-sexy Paz Vega, nothing really rang my bell when I saw the trailer for this one. I’ve heard from friends inside Sony that they don’t really have a handle on the film yet, and cutting a trailer for it has been brutally difficult, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. These folks have seen it, though, so what do they think?
Hey there Harry,
Groover signing in from the West Coast. Caught an advanced screening of "Spanglish" last night and wanted to give y'all the 4-1-1. No spoilers ahead, just my own two cents.
First, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I did not enter the theatre with an open mind. I'd seen a trailer or two for the film, and thought it looked horrible. It just seemed like a shticky family dramedy nicely timed for the holiday season to combat the glut of big budget and/or Oscar fellating films that always come out as the year ends. But, with movies in SoCal costing $10 or more for first run, any opportunity to see a free flick is a good one. Oh sure, I knew the pedigree of "Spanglish," especially that it was written & directed by James L. Brooks (big fan), but it just didn't look... original.
Brief synopsis first. "Spanglish" is the story of a Mexican single mom who brings her daughter to Los Angeles to give the girl a better life, and takes a job as a housekeeper with a quirky/messed up family. Parenting tips, life lessons and English are learned along the way. Like I said, didn't seem too original.
Big mistake, this is a great film.
Adam Sandler plays celebrated chef John Clasky who is devoted to his family even more than his work - it's nice to finally see a movie father who doesn't have to learn to love his family after nearly losing touch with them due to his job.
Tea Leoni plays his wife Deborah, a recently unemployed mom who is depressed at the notion of being a housewife and mother - as if her life means less as her husband's celebrity status grows.
Cloris Leachman plays Tea's mother, a functional alcoholic who lives with the Clasky's and constantly clashes with her daughter.
Paz Vega plays Flor, the housekeeper who speaks no English but comes to work for the Clasky's anyway so she can provide for her daughter.
What's good: The acting is very strong. Sandler turns off the shtick and just acts - which he can do when directed well. Cloris Leachman is excellent as the matriarch who knows all but dispenses advice judiciously.
What's bad: Sandler's hair. He's rockin' a 'fro straight out of 70's era porn - and it's a little distracting. Tea Leoni is not bad, but some of her hysteria and histronics do come off a little over the top. Example, a sex scene with an orgasm obviously designed to counter Meg Ryan's in "When Harry Met Sally," but just comes off hammy. Kinda funny, but only kinda. In fact, most of the early comedy gives the impression this film is more comedy than drama, which is a dis-service. Some of the funny isn't that funny, and gives the impression this is a comedy when it's really a drama with comedic moments. Finally, the film could be trimmed about 10-15 minutes. Coming in at 2:10, it's a bit too long.
The real two gems in this movie are Paz Vega as the housekeeper Flor and Shelbie Bruce as her daughter Cristina.
I think this is Vega's first major US film, and she shines. Vega's performance is a revelation. She is stunningly beautiful, and a wonderful actress. For the first half of the film, she knows virtually know English (and only gets passable by the end), and has to rely on her body and facial expressions to get her point across - and does so excellently. This is a star-making performance, and I hope to see her doing other stuff in the near future. Oh, and did I mention she's beautiful... WOW!
Shelbie Bruce as her 12 year old daughter Cristina is also excellent as her mother's main interpreter. Through her mother's job with the Clasky's, Cristina is being opened up to new experiences, locations and people she would have never met if she stayed in the barrio. And there begins another major plot point - the struggle between her mother's "old world, insular, insecurity" and her desire to live in America as an American. She, too, is a wonderful actress, and I also hope to see her in future projects.
Like I said, this movie is very good, and with some tweaks and trimming, there is an excellent film here. Given the fact I went in wanting to hate the film, I am more than pleasantly surprised and happy to give it a solid "B." With some changes and trims, there's easily a "B+" or "A-" in here.
When the glut of the year-end films starts coming out, "Spanglish" is one that'll hopefully distinguish itself and not get lost in the crowd.
Groover
Well... encouraging words, indeed. Let’s see what this next reviewer has to say:
Good evening-
I just returned from a test screening of the new James L. Brooks film, Spanglish (due in theaters sometime in December, according to IMDB), at the Sherman Oaks Galleria here in Los Angeles. Hopefully you can use this both to let your readers know about the good qualities of the film and go see it, but also to perhaps let the filmmakers, if they're reading, know what's bad about it. So here goes:
First off, I love the work of Mr. Brooks. I mean, it's almost a cliche to admire what he's done, but here goes: the excellence of Taxi and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (and, of course, his hand in The Simpsons), the unmitigated brilliance of Broadcast News, the very definition of dramedy with As Good As It Gets and Terms of Endearment. Of course, when Mr. Brooks doesn't reach his goals, it can be painful (I'm looking at you I'll Do Anything). That almost seems to be the way Mr. Brooks works: write situations, characters, and lines that are either memorable and touching or miserable and trite; there's no middle ground. But, mostly, it works.
So where does Spanglish fall? Does it work or does it fail? It seems that Spanglish does what no prior Brooks production has: it does both.
The first issue is with the story...that issue being: what is the story? Is it about Flor (not sure on spelling...this is how the IMDB spelled it) coming to America from Mexico and trying to raise her daughter to have a cultural identity amidst white America (specifically, the wealthy culture of Los Angeles)? Is it about Deborah Clasky and her crazy mood swings and inability to be happy with what she has? Is it about her husband, John Clasky, and his restaurant? Is it about the entire Clasky family learning to be a family? The thing is, although the first choice seems to be the driving story of the film, it's not clear what this movie wants to be about, or what its point is. This can be dealt with, though, as the film was only at a rough cut stage. But still, based on the version we saw tonight, the film meanders until about thirty minutes before the end when it finally seems to focus on one point. It's no that the point has been drawn out of thin air; it was obviously supposed to be leading to that throughout the entire film. But until the last thirty minutes or so, the film focuses on a hundred different things so that by the time you get to this point, you can almost say to yourself, "Ah, so this is what the movie was about...I guess."
Another issue is the length. The movie was about 2:20 or so, but it felt longer, especially by the end. When you finally figure out what the story is specifically about, you know it's either going to go one of two ways. However, the film then spends thirty minutes discussing it and thinking about it and rambling on. They're sweet scenes, but at that point, you just need it to wrap up. Maybe if they took more from the beginning and middle, it would give the audience more patience for this ending. As for the ending itself...it works in the context of one storyline, but not the others. So it's ultimately unsatisfying...though it makes sense. But anyway, the movie needs to be shorter.
One way to make the movie shorter is by eliminating a lot of the "cute." Like I said before, Mr. Brooks tends to write things that either work beautifully or come off as cheesy and bad. In this film, although there are excellent lines and moments, there are also a lot of things that don't need to be there and just act as "cute ballast." It seems as though every ten minutes, a character was telling another character exactly what they needed to hear in a way that made them light up inside. This is a James L. Brooks moment, and he does them well...when they're sprinkled throughout (like "Jimmys," as they describe on The Simpsons commentatries). When it happens in every other scene, it gets tiresome and obvious. And because there are so many characters with so many problems, there's plenty of fodder for cutesy moments. It seemed like everyone told everyone else at one point in the movie that they were "a good person." Hopefully the editing will reign these in.
Speaking of moments, Mr. Brooks seems to have stolen from himself. Remember the scene in As Good As It Gets when Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson are having dinner and she demands that he say something nice about her and he says "You make me want to be a better person"? Remember that? Well, because you liked it so much, it's here, too! Near the end, a character demands that another character tell them how pretty they are, and the character spouts off a wonderfully touching line. It was a nice moment, but the similarities are undeniable.
And then there's Tea Leoni. This will be the segueway into what I liked about the movie, but first, a few qualms. In the beginning of the film, Ms. Leoni is almost cartoonish in getting her character across. She comes off as an ebullient, only-in-a-movie sort of character, and it makes her unsympathetic from the start. However...
...once the movie gets going, she levels off and becomes bearable. In fact, given that I've only seen her in Deep Impact and Bad Boys, I was impressed with her range in this film. Ultimately, she was very good in the movie.
Which leads to the performances. Overall, the performances were excellent. Although I certainly love Adam Sandler's broad comedies (Billy Madison is as much an unmitigated classic as Broadcast News), I'm glad to see him in more dramatic roles of late, because he does a great job. I was very impressed with his work in Spanglish. Although he is playing The Best Person In The Entire World (tm) in this film, he does a great job as a family man. His line delivery to Tea Leoni late in the film ("Really?") was touching and was the best part of the entire movie. Paz Vega, as the ostensible main character, was also superb. She and Sandler had some good chemistry, and she was quite capable of holding her own against the occasional psychoses of Tea Leoni and the drunken scene-stealer Cloris Leachman. The two daughters (Sandler's and Vega's) in the movie were also excellent.
Like I said earlier, when the movie works, it works. It is a funny, occasionally touching movie. It just doesn't know what it's about yet. But like they said in The Money Pit, "If the foundation's good, then everything else is all right" (or something like that). Right now, it's no Broadcast News, but it's also no I'll Do Anything. Hopefully they can tighten it in editing and get rid of 75% of the daily affirmations.
If you use this, call me Shamma Lamma Bing Bong Wiffle Waffle Hey.
Sounds like James has, at the very least, a good film on his hands. He’s a notorious tinkerer, though, and will probably be tweaking it right up until the last minute, so there’s a chance he’ll find a truly great cut in there. Let’s hope so...
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