Spanglish

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Just as Spanglish, the language, is combination of languages, Spanglish the movie is a story about a meeting of cultures. The movie is about a non-English speaking Hispanic woman who goes to work for an upper class white family in LA. More than just a story about language barriers, the movie addresses deeper differences such as identity and values. It shows the many ways the dominant culture in which we live can determine our sense of value. It reveals that those values need not be our only choices. And it points out the reality that, in the end, we all have the ability to choose what we let define us and decide what really matters.

Through each character in Spanglish, we are introduced to different notions of meaning and value.

Deborah Clasky (Téa Leoni) is an insecure perfectionist. The company that she used to work for is no longer in existence, so she is now a full-time mother. She spends much of her time running and working out so she can have the perfect body, gets her kids into the right schools, and just wants her own daughter to fit in (in other words, fit into the right size clothing). Although she is well-off and has a loving husband, she is constantly striving to be better, do more, and literally run faster and than everyone else. Still, she finds herself feeling unhappy and unworthy of anything.

Her husband John (Adam Sandler) is almost the direct opposite. While he is a successful chef, he opens the movie dreading the possibility of his restaurant being awarded four stars. All he desires is to do what he loves, cook, and still have time to spend time with the people he loves, his family. After the restaurant is awarded the four stars, the difference between his outlook on life and his wife’s is very clear. She is immediately ecstatic and celebratory of their new status, while John curses the paper that gives him the news. When it comes to his children, John loves his kids just as they are and wishes they could stop worrying about things that don’t matter.

Entering into the Claskys’ lives as their housekeeper, Flor (Paz Vega) brings her own identity into their home. Coming from a culture that places a greater value on family than American culture in general, she values her own family, one daughter, very much. The reason she is working for the Claskys is so that she can both support and spend time with her daughter. She will have nothing to do with her daughter learning to see her value only in the right looks, the right school, or the right amount of money. And placing an emphasis on complimenting others instead of pointing out needs for improvement, Flor urges everyone around her to see value in their lives as is, not to feel they always have to be striving for something else.

As the movie unwinds, Deborah eventually hits rock bottom and the Clasky family faces a crisis. Sitting with Deborah as she cries, Deborah’s mother Evelyn (Cloris Leachman) shares her own perspectives on life. A former singer, it seems that much like Deborah, Evelyn was far from an encouraging or supportive mother during Deborah’s childhood. In this moment, however, Evelyn is ready to do nothing but help and advise her daughter and to “enjoy actually being of use.�

Teaching her songs to her grandson to help him get over nightmares (earlier in the movie), Evelyn came to her own conclusion that even a long-gone life that seems like no more than “an embarrassment� becomes meaningful when it is able to encourage others. Now as she talks with her daughter, she shares that idea, pushing Deborah to see how much she has, not because she is rich, not because of her looks, not even because of what she does, but simply because she is loved and has people in her life she can love.

After John returns home following an argument with Deborah, his daughter Bernice gets out of bed to make sure he is back and okay. He apologizes for worrying her, but she simply says, “It’s good for me to worry about stuff that really matters.� At the end of the story, everyone from Deborah to Flor’s daughter Christina either finds out or is reminded that the things that actually give their life value are the people who share their lives with them.

In a society where emphasis is too often placed on needing to be perfect, on success and money and prestige, without much consideration for family or relationships, this affirmation of the value of family is a welcome statement. As a story centered on emotion and relationships, however, the movie is disappointing. The story emphasizes identity and value below the surface, yet, at the end, the characters seem no more familiar than when the movie started. Emotions are revealed, but lines seem more like carefully crafted lines than the reality of what is going on deep inside the characters. Because of this, some characters’ behaviors seem unbelievable. And while the story has funny moments, touching moments, and some great statements about life and family, without the emotional strength it should have had, the events of the story itself struggle to keep you interested in what is going to happen next.

While Spanglish is not a movie I plan to buy, the questions the characters struggle with and conclusions they reach are ones I am glad to have shared with them. The movie asks: Who or what defines our lives and identities? and What really matters? It shows us the many ways our culture tells us to define ourselves and the many things the world considers important. And in the end, it presents value and identity in loving and being loved, in relationships, in family, and in simply seeing how much more those things can mean than living only to meet the society's expectations.

As John says while talking about the choice to either become the same as every one else or be different, “Between odd and the same, you’ve got to be rooting for odd.� In a culture where being the same and keeping up so often leaves relationships behind and leaves no room to love or be loved, it seems that choosing to be different is the way to go.

As one of the movie’s taglines states, “Every family has a hero.� With heroics in the form of care, concern, encouragement, and honesty, the movie shows that heroism is not about flying, x-ray vision, being perfect, or never letting anyone down, but about simply loving one another through it all.

Sometimes the heroes in our lives may be friends. Other times they may be family. When times get rough, when priorities and values must be rearranged, when the whole world puts love at the bottom of lists, and when even those people we count on the most let us down, God will remain the same, always ready to love us just as we are, to be the hero we all need, and never ceasing to know that every one of us can be a hero as well.

HJ Links
—Review
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections