The Unseen Movie Review

Spanglish

Although this is an Adam Sandler vehicle, it is not simply one of those “zany” slapstick comedies at which he has been so successful. But if you are a fan of The Simpsons, the news that this movie has been written and directed by that show’s producer, James L Brooks, will no doubt raise a lot of promise.

However, rather than being Simpsons-style in humour or a typical Sandler film, it more closely resembles Brooks’ last outing as film director, the Oscar-winning 1997 Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt vehicle As Good As It Gets, in which an array of very different characters gradually came to realise how much they have in common in an unlikely yet endearingly sentimental gush-fest.

Here, Sandler plays a celebrity chef who, with his bitchy wife (Tia Leone), hires a new Mexican housemaid who doesn’t speak much English (played by Spanish actress Paz Vega in her first English language film). This being an American movie, the fact that she is Mexican doesn’t simply mean her English isn’t very good, but is an instant shorthand for “working class”.

Yep, it’s a class comedy. Only the comedy isn’t the major thrust of the film, an odd thing for Sandler judging by his past outings, largely thanks to the sheer unpleasantness of Leone’s utter cow of a stuck-up, selfish and apparently racist wife, who makes a lot of the supposed humour end up rather sour. Thanks in part to his dawning realisation of just how horrible his wife is, Sandler’s hapless chef is gradually drawn closer to their put-upon maid, especially when the couple ends up having to bring their servant’s daughter in to the household alongside their own children.

It is instead another of those “message” movies – here about how everyone, despite their class or nationality, has things in common if only they can find them. It’s all wonderfully twee as the servant teaches the masters, everyone realises the error of their ways and, much as with As Good As It Gets, happiness and delight for all seems just around the corner if only they can all learn to be a bit less selfish.

At the heart of the film’s concerns, rather than the adults who dominate the screentime, are their families – Sandler and Leone’s two children and Vega’s daughter, who acts as translator until her mother picks up enough English to get by. Sandler’s successful career and Leone’s failed one both threaten their relationships with their children, and Leone’s fraught experiences with her own ex-alcoholic mother amply demonstrate what can happen to people who don’t get enough parental love. It is the pretty Mexican maid who, in her simple way, eventually teaches them all the true meaning of family and love.

How sweet…

Sandler fans may be disappointed at the lack of oddball antics, but this will – albeit briefly – make you a little more optimistic about the human condition. It’s patronising, its saccharine, it’s comedy in only the loosest sense, it’s sentimentalist tosh, but it is undeniably heart-warming. It’ll bring a few tears to the eyes and you’ll leave the cinema feeling all warm inside in spite of yourself. That doesn’t, of course, actually mean it’s any good.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM