I liked it, it’s very nice and well done and very true to its heart. I was afraid they might turn it into the usual soap-opera, like ‘horrible wife so good husband and pretty cinderella-like maid fall in love and kick her out’ kind of thing, but it’s not that simple, and that’s good :-)
First of all, the story is narrated thru a paper that Cristina sends to Princeton Admission Board, so we know that she’ll be fine, they’ll be fine :-) Second, the film is not about a romantic relationship, but it’s about identity and values and parental love, with a bit of that strange, wonderful sensation you get when you think or realize that another person understands you, which is not as common as one might think.
Flor (Paz Vega) and her daughter Cristina live in Mexico. She’s a widow, and I already liked the bit when ‘Flor loved her so much she always smiled, never cried in front of her, going outside instead; Cristina loved her so much that never told her that she could hear her’ .
They leave for America, hoping in a better life: they move to LA because there are many latinos there, and find home and a job with a cousin. For a few years life goes on well: Flor has two jobs and never leaves the Spanish neighborhood, but eventually she thinks she needs to spend more time with her daughter, therefore she needs one job that will give her enough money so that she won’t need another one. She’s hired as a maid in a family that only speaks English. Deborah (Téa Leoni) is a neurotic woman, who lost her job and finds it hard to adjust to the housekeeper life, and from the controlling type that she was she starts falling down into the bad world of insecurity and doubt; John (Adam Sandler), her husband, is a famous, successful chef who doesn’t seem to find in it much joy anymore, because nothing seems to go on as he’d like it to, specially home; they have a daughter, Bernice (Sarah Steele) and a younger son, Georgie; Deb’s drunk mother also lives with them.
In short, Flor gets fond of the children and slowly connects with John in a deep, strange way: they understand each other. When she moves in with them with her daughter for the summer, Deb starts spoiling Cristina (Shelbie Bruce) and Flor is upset. Deb starts an affair, until her mom warns her that she’ll lose the good man she has and won’t find another one like him, so she confesses to John. Flor and John have fallen for each other but do nothing other than a kiss because they can’t. Ultimately Flor will leave her job and take Cristina away from them.
Now, Cristina is very upset when she has to leave, and even more when she learns that she’ll have to give up the private school Deb got her admitted to, and starts yelling at her in the street, saying that she’s ruining her life, that it’s all her fault, that she can’t do this to her… but Flor doesn’t reply at first, doesn’t get angry, instead she asks her if she really want to become a person so different from her and from herself. This does it. Cristina understands.
More in details: Deb was trying hard to find her way, I think, and keep herself busy exercising a lot, but I think the loss of her job made her feel insecure and she started making her daughter insecure, never losing a chance to tell her she should lose weight, even buying her small clothes… she thinks John is not supporting her, making her look like the bad guy of the house in front of her children. She’s so lost in herself she doesn’t understand how her children or other people feel, and when she meets Cristina she likes her very much, and takes her into town to get her hair coloured (temporary, not permanent) without asking her mother first. Cristina tells her how much she likes her, and Deb loves her for it.
Flor feels bad for Bernice and makes some modifications to her clothes so they’ll fit: Bernie understands it and hugs her. Not only Flor doesn’t speak English, she’s also a private person, who kept Cristina away from her job until she was forced to take her with them at the summer house in Malibu or leave the job, which she didn’t feel she could after Deb said that she didn’t want to lose her. Cristina is very happy and excited about it, and quickly bonds with Deb. Cristina takes John’s promises very seriously and when he says he’ll pay them for all the seashells they’ll find, probably just to get the children to go to the beach and have fun, she takes it to another level and spends hours collecting them, until she says he owes her more than 600 dollars… he did promise though, so he gives her the money but Flor gets very angry when she sees it, and one of the best scenes of the movie starts, probably the funniest one: Flor fights with John thru Cristina translating her words into English, interpreting them as if she was her mother :-p He apologizes, but since she went on for quite a while, he retorts that she’s a hypocrite, speaking of leaving other people’s children alone, because she herself interfered when she helped Bernice with her clothes. She thinks about it and agrees with him, she did interfere and maybe she shouldn’t have. He’s taken aback, he’s not used of someone agreeing so easily that they’ve made a mistake.
Deb gets Cristina accepted into her daughter’s private school: Flor doesn’t like it but Cristina is very excited so she lets her go. She speaks to John about it and he understands because he’s also worried about Bernice going there… Flor starts learning English, and she must have a very good memory because she learns it in a bit!
Deb starts going out too often, John drinks too much. One night Deb’s mom stops from going out telling her she’s risking losing John. Deb thinks about it and decides that the only thing to do in confess everything, explain to him every detail, every reason, every little thing, and hoping to start over; she didn’t feel how could he really be in love with her, and wanted a long long talk with him, but as she starts speaking between the tears, as he understands that she had an affair, he only asks if she slept with him, nothing else. She says yes, and he’s not interested in anything else she has to say. Not the long long talk she was expecting. She’s fallen apart, completely. When he goes out, he meets Flor coming to take Cristina home (which she doesn’t because she was already asleep with a couple of friends from school). He offers to drive her to the bus stop, but he feels down and wants her company, so he takes her to his restaurant and cooks for her, they share a kiss but then she pulls back and tells him that there are mistakes that someone can’t do when they have children. He knows too, but still they enjoy each other’s company and stay there and talk to each other, until she tells him that she loves him and runs away.
She’s made up her mind, she doesn’t want to lose her daughter, so next morning she goes there to quit the job and take her daughter home. She says goodbye to the children and also to John: they hug each other very tightly, and then she leaves.
We don’t know what will happen between John and Deborah, only that she’s trying, listening to her mother’s sober advice, that she loves him and wants him with her.
I like the fact that Flor kept true to herself, instead of immerging herself in the American way becoming just like them, and that her decisions were made thinking more about her daughter than herself.
I loved the scene when she took Cristina to a restaurant, as soon as she got that good job and was no more worried about money: she made the waitress smile when she didn’t just say no to two men wanting to buy her a drink, but sent her back to tell them who do they think they are and can’t they see she’s with her daughter, her young daughter?? :-D
I liked how the movie was made, and all the actors were good, youngsters and grown-ups both. Leoni was very good, Vega was very good, and Sandler was good too. I’m not a big fan, because he often plays it exaggerating, but he didn’t here, it was good. The girls were good too, and the scene with Cristina translating is very good :-D
ITA spanglish-quando in famiglia sono in troppi a parlare (stupid title)
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