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Excuse me, do you speak Spanglish?

January 5th, 2005
Posted by kristy in: movies, reviews

On Sunday night, Team Thomas headed down to Kipps Bay Cinema to see Spanglish, Adam Sandler’s latest film which opens in Australia on February 17th.

Paz Vega

Spanglish tells the story of a beautiful Mexican woman (Paz Vega) who goes to work for an affluent family in Los Angeles. I thought from the previews that it looked entertaining though I suspect that the key attraction for Gerrod (other than pleasantly surprising me) was its director, James L Brooks, co-producer of the Simpsons.

The film was quite enjoyable with a few hearty laughs scattered throughout but one of the strangest things was hearing what others audience members laughed at. As usual, we’re finding that our sense of humour differs a little from the Yanks. Really contrived humour that might raise a smile seems to leave them in stitches, while more subtle or ironic comedy is lost on many of them. Prompting us to use one of our most common phrases, “Crazy Americans”.

Anyway, back to the film. For me, its downfall was the shifting focus. Which generation is this film about? It is ‘bookended’ with segments that focus on the daughter but the bulk of the film is about her mother and scenes that the child wasn’t even involved in. For Gerrod, the key downfall was taking 2hrs and 10mins to tell a relatively simple story.

Paz Vega is a definite highlight – especially when you consider that she didn’t speak a word of english when they started filming.

gerrod.com rating: 6.5/10 – harmless fun but you can wait to see it on DVD.

3 comments

#1 jason January 6th, 2005 at 9:27 am

Cool….. another Adam Sandler Film

#2 burger January 6th, 2005 at 10:37 am

Sounds like another Adam Sandler crime against humanity. You work at the UN, can’t you do something about this?

#3 gerrod January 6th, 2005 at 1:34 pm

Jason: Think Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love, not Happy Gilmore…<br><br>Burger: I take it to mean you’re not an Adam Sandler fan… ?