There are movies about flawed characters that are very good.
Then there are movies where the characters are all very very low on redeeming qualities. Any signs of likeableness. This was the latter. No fun.

It was on, I was eating, I watched it. Apart from the bit in the middle when I went and did the dishes. Maybe that was the ‘good’ bit?

Painfully long, I thought it would never end. Utterly boring. Had promise but failed to deliver. One of the most boring evenings I have ever spent at home.

Maybe we have gotten too used to happy endings. James Brooks seems to thrive on producing films about flawed characters and with bittersweet endings, at best. Broadcast News and Terms of Endearment are two examples that come to mind. Spanglish is a third. I believe the characters are all going to need therapy at some point in their lives if they haven’t already entered it. But they were all genuine in their own imperfect ways: Tea Leoni in how she was so adamantly right about everything and so totally oblivious to the impact she had on people around her and indeed oblivious to any true thing about anyone around her and most especially about those with whom she should be most intimate; Paz Vega with her intense determination to do the best for her daughter that would only permit her to comprehend a “best” that fit into her narrow definition of the concept; Adam Sandler as a weak and dominated man who so wanted to be fierce but who could not bring himself to pay the price for his ferocity until it was already too late. They are all flawed and imperfect people, but that doesn’t make them any less worth watching. Perhaps it only makes them a little too close to home for it to be completely comfortable watching them.

Meh. I like stories of “tragic”, unconsummated love (I believe everyone should have one such love in life), but there was so much about this film that bothered me. Tea Leonie’s character was too much a caricature for me, Adam Sandler’s character was not compelling for me, not fully realized, I felt, and the lead – ugh! She was portrayed as this strong, great mother who is raising her daughter so well, as only non-Anglos can, and I didn’t agree – at all!!! Her poor daughter would find herself needing therapy a few years down the road, and her mother would probably guilt her into not doing it for herself.

I didn’t expect it to be even half as engaging as it was. Every performance in it was stellar.

Man, this is the story of unconsumed love…

Falling in love, finding everything you want or need in a person you can’t have. Desiring that person more than anything else and then making the decision not to move forward because it’s the right thing to do…

So-so ~ not great.