Clint Eastwood's Swanky Knockout ; With its gritty performances, its ringside corruption and its lowlife integrity, Million Dollar Baby builds muscle in the tradition of those formulaic boxing movies in the 1940's

• Published in: The New York observer (New York, N.Y. 1987)
• Main Author: Reed, Rex
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Observer, LP 20.12.2004
• Subjects: Clasky, Deb; Dunn, Frankie; Eastwood, Clint; Fitzgerald, Maggie; Sandler, Adam
• ISSN: 1052-2948

This is material worth serving. Spanglish examines the L.A. culture-collision between affluent employers and their ethnic servants from the perspective of clashing values and changing mores, with a witty, perceptive and touching respect for the differences that set people apart and force them back together under the same social umbrella. Paz Vega, the gorgeous star of Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her, makes her American film debut as Flor, a hard-working single mother from the Mexican slums who has immigrated to California to provide a better life for her teenage daughter. Flor's biggest break after years of struggle comes out of the blue when she applies for a job as a housekeeper in the Clasky home and gets hired on the spot by the loopy, stressed-out Deb Clasky (Tea Leoni), a spoiled bleach-blond Beverly Hills housewife in the middle of an identity crisis who can scarcely organize a cup of organic tea without hysteria, much less get her children off to school. What Flor innocently walks into is Mount St. Helens, ready to erupt. In addition to the beautiful but unhinged Deb, the terminally frazzled Claskys also include husband John ([Adam Sandler]), an uber-chef on the rise who lives in mortal fear of the restaurant critic for the L. A. Times, overweight teenage daughter Bernie, troubled 9-year- old son George, who suffers from nightmares, and Deb's mother Evelyn (hilariously played by the great Cloris Leachman). Evelyn is a dipsomaniac who used to be a cherished jazz singer from the June Christy "cool school" in her salad days. No family ever had a grandmother like Evelyn. When little George has one of his bad dreams, Grandma teaches him a new song. Not "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" or "Three Blind Mice", her kind of songs. Until you see a 9-year-old boy singing "Lush Life," you don't know what fresh laughter is. Since Flor doesn't speak one word of English, everyone in the house communicates in "Spanglish," the hybrid lingo 90 percent of all assimilated Latinos in the American work force speak in order to survive, with Flor's daughter Cristina acting as interpreter, and the results are a Tower of Babble. When Flor secretly reaches for her sewing kit to let out Bernie Clasky's clothes from the torturous smaller sizes her mom buys to humiliate her into losing weight, a loving rapport develops between the maid and her employer's kid that feeds Deb's inferiority complex even more. Then they move to Malibu ("God's private toy store for the rich," observes Cristina), where Deb takes an inappropriate interest in Cristina's education, applying for a scholarship to a private school that Flor cannot afford, injuring her pride. Dad gets his first four-star review, Deb has a brief affair that endangers the marriage, Flor finds herself reluctantly filling gaps and providing warmth and affection against her better judgment. Two cultures converge in the same house, with everyone getting involved in the tensions and conflicts; it's like a munitions factory waiting for someone to light a match. Something's gotta give, before a lot of nice people do irreparable damage that can never be reversed, and the ways Mr. [James L. Brooks] leads them all to adulthood are sweet, moving and genuinely funny.