Spanglish

Spanglish is a 2004 film about single Mexican mother, Flor who gets a job as the housekeeper for a rich white American family. The plot revolves around the difficulty Flor faces as her daughter gradually acclimates to an American identity and a growing admiration and intimacy between the father and Flor.

Written and Directed by James L. Brooks

• Es lo que quieres para ti? Para llegar a ser alguien muy diferente a mí? [Is what you want for yourself? To become someone very different than me?]

• American women, I believe, actually the feel the same as Hispanic women about weight: a desire for the comfort of fullness. And when that desire is suppressed for style and deprivation allowed to rule, dieting, exercising American women become afraid of everything associated with being curvaceous: such as wantoness, lustfulness, sex, food, motherhood; all that is best in life.
• I've been overwhelmed by your encouragement to apply to your university and your list of scholarships available to me. Though, as I hope this essay shows, your acceptance, while it would thrill me, will not define me. My identity rests firmly and happily on one fact: I am my mother's daughter. Thank you, Cristina Moreno.

• Worrying about your kids is sanity, and being that sane can drive you nuts.
• Do this for me or I'll set my hair on fire and start punching myself in the face! [Victor: Huh?] Yeah, yeah, you're right: that was an unusual way to make myself understood.
  • [The first part of the line was delivered in a manner similar to Sandler's other, more comically outlandish characters.]
• They should name a gender after you. Looking at you doesn't do it, staring is the only way that makes sense. And trying not to blink so you don't miss anything. And all of that and you're you. It's just that you are drop dead crazy gorgeous,so much so, that I'm actually considering looking at you again before we finish up here.
• I know I know we can't do anything, that brings a kind of satisfaction and release, BUT I'M STILL HAVING A GREAT TIME!

• Flor! Look at this child! You could make a fortune doing surrogate pregnancy!
• You were an alcoholic and wildly promiscuous woman during my formative years so that I'm in this fix because of you, it is your fault and I just needed that moment for us to build on.

Deborah: How are you nicer than me?

John: You didn't set the bar that high.

Evelyn: We have to talk.

Deborah: Mother, are you buzzed?

Evelyn: No. I quit drinking weeks ago! No one noticed, but I guess that's a pretty good indicator that I conducted myself quite well when I was drunk. But this isn't about me right now.

Deborah: Do you really think that cupping my breast is going to solve the issue here?

John: It's worked before.

Deborah: Well, now it's infuriating me.

John: Wrong breast.

Deborah: So tell me again why I can't call him on his cell again?

Evelyn: Besides that he turned it off?

Deborah: Yeah.

Evelyn: Forty messages starts to look needy.

John: [Trying to explain the money he gave to Cristina. Exasperated] Oh, shit!

Cristina: [Translating for Flor] Ay, mierda!

[Flor looks at her shocked]

• Paz Vega - Flor Moreno
• Shelbie Bruce - Cristina Moreno
• Adam Sandler - John Clasky
• Téa Leoni - Deborah Clasky
• Sarah Steele - Bernice "Bernie" Clasky
• Cloris Leachman - Evelyn Norwich

Wikipedia has an article about:

Spanglish (film)