Food in The Movies
1. Spanglish
Released on:December 2004
Genre:Drama
Directed By:James
L. Brooks
Story By:James
L. Brooks
Starcast: Adam Sandler, Téa Leoni, Paz Vega
James L.
Brooks' "Spanglish" tells the story of a Mexican woman and her
daughter who travel all the way to Los Angeles to bring sanity to a crazy Anglo
family. When I mention that the father of the family is played by Adam Sandler and is not its craziest member, you
will see she has her work cut out for her. And yet the movie is not quite the
sitcom the setup seems to suggest; there are some character quirks that make it
intriguing.
Consider
Deborah Clasky, the mother of the Los Angeles family. She is played by Tea Leoni like an explosion at the multiple
personality’s factory. She is kind, enlightened and politically correct. She is
also hysterical, manic and a drama queen whose daily life is besieged by one
crisis after another. I am not sure this character has any connection to a
possible human being, but as a phenomenon, it's kind of amazing; Deborah
doesn't just go over the top, she waves goodbye as she disappears into
cuckoo-land. Somehow Leoni is able to play Deborah without frothing at the
mouth, and indeed makes her kind of lovable.
One who
loves her is her husband John (Sandler), although he treacherously observes
"I'm running out of excuses for the woman of the house." John is a
chef -- in fact, according to the New York Times, the finest chef in America.
You would therefore expect him to be a perfectionist tyrant with anger
management problems, but in fact he's basically just that sweet Sandler boy,
and at one point he is asked, "Could you stop being so stark-raving
calm?"
Deborah's
mother Evelyn (Cloris Leachman) is a practicing alcoholic whose rehearsals
start at noon. She's a former jazz singer, now relegated to resident Golden
Girl, sending in zingers from the sidelines. Her drinking pays off in the last
act, however, when she sobers up (no one notices) and gives her daughter urgent
advice.
Into this
household come Flor (Paz Vega) and her daughter Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), who is about the same middle-school age as
the Clasky's daughter Bernice (Sarah Steele). Flor and
Cristina have lived in the barrio for six years, and now venture into
Anglo-land because Flor needs a better job. The story is narrated by the
17-year-old Cristina as an affectionate memory of her mother, who learned
English the better to treat this needful family with enormous doses of common sense.
Now that we
have all the characters on stage, what is their story about? Is it about Flor,
whose daughter narrates the story, or about the Claskys' marriage, or about the
way the two daughters, both smart, both sane, are the go-to members of their families?
I'm not sure there's a clear story line; it's more as if all these people meet,
mix, behave and almost lose their happiness (if happiness it is) before all is
restored, and the movie can end.
Along the
way there are some wonderful scenes. My favorite involves a sequence where Flor
decides she must finally explain to the Claskys exactly what she thinks, and
why. At this point she still speaks no English, and so Cristina acts as her
interpreter. As mother and daughter, Paz Vega and Shelbie Bruce play the scene
with virtuoso comic timing, the mother waving her arms and the girl waving her
same arms exactly the same way a second later, as they stalk around the room,
Cristina acting as translator, shadow and mime.
There's also
ironic dialogue in a sequence involving the Times review of John's restaurant,
which to John is a catastrophe. Restaurants are ruined by four-star reviews, he
explains: A line of @$$#o!>s immediately forms out in front. Please, lord,
he prays, just give me three and a quarter stars. The restaurant isn't really
crucial to the story, however; it's more like a way for John to get out of the
house.
Oh, and Tea
Leoni has the first onscreen orgasm that can seriously be compared with Meg
Ryan's showstopper in "When Harry Met Sally." After Ryan's, you'll
recall, another woman in the restaurant said, "I'll have what she's
having." After Leoni's, you just want to dial 911.
When it
comes to the experiences of a Latino maid in an Anglo household, nothing is
likely to improve on the adventures of Zaide Silvia Gutierrez in
"El Norte" (1983), where the space-age automatic
washer-dryer proved so baffling that the young maid just spread the washing out
on the lawn to dry in the sun. But "Spanglish" isn't really about
being a maid, it's more about being a life force, as Flor heals this family with
a sunny disposition and an anchor of normality.
There are a
couple of excursions toward adultery in the film, one off-screen, the other not
quite realized, but they, too, exist not to cause trouble, but to provide
trouble that can be cured. The movie is all about solutions, and the problems
are more like test questions. At the end, I felt there hadn't been much at
risk, but I got to see some worthy characters stumbling toward improvement.
Talking about the delicious dish of the movie, here we present
Bernice’s French Toast BLT.
French Toast BLT
4 Bread
Slices
5 Eggs
2 tbsp Milk
A pinch Sugar
1 tbsp Butter
4-6 Strips
of Cooked Bacon
1 Small
Tomato, sliced
2 Lettuce
Leaves, split in halves
1-2 tbsp Mayonnaise(optional)
Method
1. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk and
sugar. Whisk together until light &
fluffy. Place the bread slices in the
custard mixture one at a time, allowing each one to soak for at least a minute.
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium
heat. When the butter has melted and a
few drops of water flicked onto the skillet sizzle & immediately evaporate,
place the custard soaked bread pieces in the pan. Cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side,
until the outside has turned a golden brown and the inside has set firmly. Remove from heat and repeat with the other
bread slices.
3. When all the French toast has been cooked,
assemble your BLTs. Spread a thin layer
of mayo on each French toast slice, then top with a layer of bacon strips,
tomato, and lettuce. Put both sandwich
halves together and slice in half. Serve
hot.
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