Review: Adam Sandler cooks up a winner in 'Spanglish'
Posted Wednesday, April 6, 2005 at 5:04 PM Central
by John Couture
Adam Sandler has a problem when he steps out of his safe haven of Happy Gilmore inspired schlock comedies to play a more dramatic character. Thankfully, in Spanglish, he strikes a perfect balance between serious and goofy to perhaps turn in his best performance to date.
Spanglish is a multi-layered romantic comedy/drama where all the characters are faced with inherent barriers that seem impossible to cross. Sandler’s John Clasky is unable to fathom how to balance success at his restaurant with the increasing the demands of keeping his family together. Flor, played brilliantly by American film newcomer Paz Vega, is confronted abruptly with a new culture as she uproots herself and her daughter from Mexico and moves to Los Angeles.
The real synergy of the movie occurs when Flor and John’s worlds collide after Flor takes the housekeeper position in the Clasky’s home. John, who spends the majority of his time trying to keep his neurotic wife stable, is intrigued by the natural beauty and compassion that Flor shows for her daughter, something that is in direct contrast to his wife Deb’s (Tea Leoni) attitude to their own children.
In the midst of his life falling apart from all fronts, John and Flor are able to share one perfect night where each is able to express themselves despite the cultural and linguistic barriers between them. Ultimately, the film is about relationships and impact of multiculturalism on daily interactions. Deb is representative of the majority opinion of Americans. Her clueless interaction with Flor and Cristina and her determined insistence that she was right and her actions throughout the movie could never be interpreted as anything other than caring shows her ignorance to the world around her and is evident in her relationship with her own daughter.
The reason Spanglish works where Punch-Drunk Love failed is that Adam Sandler is not placed in the center of the action. His character is able to rely heavily on his boyish charm and even in the most dramatic of scenes, the focus is elsewhere. The women of Spanglish, including a fine performance from Cloris Leachman, carry this film and Sandler is taken along for a ride.
While the movie certainly plays well to a female audience, men in tune with their emotional side won’t be able to resist the poignant depiction of a man who finds himself in over his head and when the rescue raft comes along, he finds that it has a leak. I found it be it a worthy new volume in director/writer James L. Brooks’ library. It seems that he is one of those rare storytellers who really understands the intricacies of the confrontations between a man and a woman.
VIDEO The transfer of the movie itself is beautiful. The widescreen presentation captures both the sweeping backdrop and the emotional chasm that exists between the characters, even though for a large part of the movie, they’re all trapped in a small summer house.
In the bonus features, the additional scenes and the casting sessions were not remastered and the quality is obviously not up to the level of the movie. But, they are still presented in a high enough quality so as not to be distracting to the viewer.
AUDIO The 5.1 Dolby Digital track is the only audio option on the disc. Thankfully, because of the type of movie that it is, it more than suffices for the purpose of this dialog driven movie. One of the interesting things about the movie is that there is never a single subtitle, even though a great portion of the dialog is in Spanish. You have to rely on the characters’ reactions and sparse translation to get the gist of the conversation if you don’t happen to speak Spanish. The superb acting and reacting by the Spanish characters really helped to complete the movie.
SPECIAL FEATURES For a single disc initial offering, Spanglish delivers where many of its peers fail by delivering a wide range of interesting bonus features that add to the experience of the movie.
The audio commentary was a great balance between interesting side stories and informative filmmaking techniques. Listening to James L. Brooks and his obvious love of this story really helps to fill in the cracks of the movie and filmmaking process. In particular, his commentary on the deleted scenes and the casting sessions added new insight and helped to clarify why certain scenes or different cuts of the scenes made the finished product.
The 12 deleted or extended scenes really added to the richness of the movie. In particular, you get more great dialog and snippets of conversation that really help to define the character or the place in the movie. Ultimately, you come to agree with James that certain scenes alter the tone or just didn’t add enough to the movie to justify increasing the already 2 hour plus movie, but as stand alone vignettes, they take on a life of their own and gives a sneak peak into the private moments of these characters’ lives. In particular, the scene between Cristina and Bernice where Bernice finds out that her sense of humor is superior to Cristina and that finally she has something better than her is brilliant and funny on its, but doesn’t add much to the story as a whole.
One feature that you don’t find on too many discs these days, but is used to perfection on this one is casting sessions. With James L. Brooks’ commentary, the viewer is able to get a better appreciation as to why certain casting choices were made and how the actors themselves won the roles. In particular during the reading by Sarah Steele, James explains how the young actress, through the help of her father who is a doctor, agreed to put on 15 pounds of weight to better fill out the role of Bernice.
Including content such as the “HBO First Look” should be a no-brainer on DVDs, not all viewers subscribe to the cable channel. In particular, this installment provided great interviews with the cast and related some private interactions that helped to shape the movie. Perhaps, the most unique to come about in some time was the “How to Make the World’s Greatest Sandwich” tutorial by renowned chef Thomas Keller. The inclusion of this is not only practical as it shows you how to make a killer sandwich, but it also shows more character development as Adam Sandler tries to perfect the process as the sandwich plays a important part in the movie.
The shooting script on the DVD-ROM is a nice touch that provides a little something extra for those aspiring filmmakers.
RECOMMENDATION
Spanglish is one of those rare movies these days that might be worthy of repeat viewing. In particular, the vast amount of bonus features surely make this movie a value buy.
Fans of Adam Sandler will not be disappointed, nor will people that enjoy adult movies concerning real interactions and conflicts. This movie is one that many people passed on at the theaters, but don’t make the same mistake twice. Spanglish definitely needs to be seen and dare I say is a movie that is worthy of a “Buy” recommendation.