Genre:
Comedy Drama
Theatrical Release: 12/17/2004(USA)
Release Date: 01/01/2001
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time:
Flags: Adult Language, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Columbia TriStar
A Hispanic woman and her young daughter are thrown into the middle of a well-to-do but remarkably dysfunctional family in this
comedy drama from writer and director
James L. Brooks.
Flor (
Paz Vega) is a single mother who has struggled to support her daughter
Cristina (
Shelbie Bruce) working as a domestic in Mexico. Hoping to give her daughter greater financial security,
Flor packs up their belongings and moves the family to California, but
Flor refuses to surrender her Latino identity and opts not to learn English; meanwhile,
Cristina quickly learns to speak the language fluently.
Flor lands a high-paying job working as a housekeeper for
Deborah Clasky (
Téa Leoni);
Deborah doesn't speak a word of Spanish, but this is hardly the most curious thing about their working relationship. A deeply troubled neurotic who has spent time in a mental hospital,
Deborah is at once obsessed with her duties as a wife and mother and utterly clueless to her family's needs, and when she learns that
Flor has a daughter, she insists that the girl move in with the
Claskys.
Flor, however, isn't so sure she wants
Deborah Americanizing
Cristina, especially when
Deborah begins doting on the girl at the expense of her relationship with her own daughter,
Bernice (
Sarah Steele).
Deborah's husband,
John (
Adam Sandler), is an oasis of loving calm and understanding in the midst of his chaotic family, and
Flor becomes attracted to this man who shows no signs of the arrogant machismo she's accustomed to. But
John's career as a chef is turned upside down when
The New York Times gives his restaurant a four-star review, suddenly turning his small eatery into the "in" spot in Los Angeles. Meanwhile,
Flor reaches the end of her patience when
Deborah enrolls
Cristina into an exclusive private school which
Flor is certain will turn her into a typical American child and drive a wedge between
Cristina and her mother.
Spanglish also stars
Cloris Leachman as
Deborah's sharp-tongued mother. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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