Stuff by Steve

I wasn’t entirely sure what this movie was about going into it. The promos didn’t seem to give much away, save that the movie involved an immigrant Mexican and her daughter as their lives became entangled with an urban-riche L.A. family. I tend to like my movie experiences somewhat clear-cut, so I watched Spanglish with a bit of both wariness and curiosity. In the end, however, I was still left with that burning question, “what was the point?” It seemed that the opening narration was leading somewhere, but 110 minutes later I was still wonder exactly where that was. The alleged undercurrent seemed wildly out-of-place with the drama that it surrounded; drama that, while thought-provoking and poignant, was also completely gratuitous. It was well-acted, beautifully paced, and contemplative-but-not-without-hope, but still merely drama for the sake of drama. A lot of people like this kind of thing and, to be fair, I thought it wasn’t too bad, but I’ve got to say that I’ll take purposeful character development any day.