Spanglish

Hey hey, Sewer Viewers! Thanks for finding your way to the real. I mean the Real. This is the unvarnished, for-everyone-but-the-wife review of Spanglish.

And you know what? I’ve had a few days to mull over this movie, and now that the pain has subsided, I’m not as filled with bile. It might be okay for some people to watch. Or maybe not.

Fade in on Ivy League admissions folks reading an application. Cue voiceover of the girl reading her essay. Convieninently, her essay is also the script for Spanglish, and we learn how she and her mom move to LA when life with hubby in Mexico goes south.

Horribly, the mom (the amazing Paz Vega) finds a job with a filthy rich couple played by Tea Leoni and Adam sandler. Aiieeee!!!! But there’s a bright side because the richies eventually teach valuable life-lessons to their illegal immigrant housecleaner.

Sewer finds many things wrong with this movie, and rather than wasting energy on a ‘structured’ and ‘well-thought-out’ review, he’s going to just rant for a while.

1 There is no restraint:

o Tea plays her well-meaning but neurotic character as such a shrill spazz that you want to crush her with a steamroller within the first 10 minutes.

o Sandler- as chef John Clasky – is not just a successful chef, he’s ‘the best chef in the United States.’

o They have a dog that is psychotic about fetch. It’s a metaphor for something, but stupefying and unreadable.

2 James L. Brooks has lost the funny:

o You’ll get like, 5 laughs out of this movie, and they’re half-hearted.

o And what does he know about the lives of Latina illegal immigrants – except that he probably employs and ignores them?

3 He can’t direct:

o If his actors aren’t hamming it up enough (except for Vega – but maybe I say that because she’s so cute) he gets in real tight for an uncomfortable close-up.

o And he usually does this by zooming. Oh, it’s a slow zoom, but it’s a zoom. Who does he think he is; Jess Franco?

4 Sandler only has three levels of dweeb.

5 Spanglish is overlong, not funny, dissatisfying, and most all the characters in it are annoying and cartoonish.

o I didn’t even buy the ‘lesson’ that our heroes ultimately learn … maybe I’m not Latina.

So there you go, kids, the Sewer has found the perfect new resident, Spanglish, but this time only masochists need watch. I thought about coming up with a new, more-vile rating system for Spanglish, which has a decent offering of extras on DVD (delelted scenes, punk-ass documentaries etc.) but we’ll just have to settle for a few empty pints.

They didn’t help.