Support Shadows: Buy a Poster

Flor (Vega) is a single mother in Mexico who travels to Los Angeles with 12-year-old daughter Cristina (Luna) and gets a job with the wealthy Clasky family--neurotic housewife Deborah (Leoni), celebrated chef John (Sandler), sparky kids (Steele and Hyland) and drunken mother (Leachman). Flor doesn't speak a word of English, and they know no Spanish, but it's the communication between family members that's the real problem.

While the set-up isn't terribly exciting, and the film constantly threatens to turn into a mother-daughter weep-fest, Brooks is confident enough to keep our focus on characters and relationships. After the awkward opening, the film blossoms, drawing us in with revelatory dialog, offbeat situations and characters who sputter and struggle before finally saying what they really feel (perhaps a bit too eloquently--if only we could really come up with lines like this at such crucial moments!).

This is Sandler's best-ever performance--the least self-conscious thing he's done. He nails John's sensitive-guy persona, an ability to empathise and a desire to live without conflict that's simply going to be impossible with a wife as tightly wound as Deborah is. Leoni is a slightly too-manic bundle of chaos--hilarious, infuriating, kinetic and rather scary most of the time. Vega holds the film's centre perfectly as the almost too-perfect Flor. The children deliver unusually intelligent, complex turns. And Leachman effortlessly steals the whole thing.

Brooks' is of course paralleling the cultural/linguistic divide with the gaps that exist in mother-daughter and husband-wife relationships. There's nothing simplistic in the way these people relate to each other--strained patience, unrealistic hopes, tough love, pointless competition and years of baggage. And when a big ending looms, Brooks steps back and thoughtfully reminds us that this is actually a film about the meeting of hearts and souls where language fails us.