Spanglish

If there's a lesson to be learned from the train wreck that was Alexander, it may be that directorial obsessions rarely result in watchable movies. At least, Oliver Stone's meltdown had the feel of an honest, uncompromising failure, the work of an artist gripped by a glorious insanity. Stone threw himself beneath the hooves of those elephants because his vision allowed him no other choice.

Spanglish is not so simple to understand. For one thing, writer/director James L Brooks is less knowable than Stone. Though the products of his mind are cultural landmarks, from Terms Of Endearment to The Simpsons, the personality behind them remains private.

If this film is your first taste of Brooks, you might suspect him of harbouring seriously negative attitudes toward white American women, primarily those with drive, intelligence and a desire for something beyond pregnancy and homemaking. That these are the very traits he celebrated as executive producer of The Mary Tyler Moore Show only makes Spanglish all the more troubling.

On the surface, the film is simplicity itself. A Mexican single mother, named Flor (Spanish star Paz Vega in a stunning American debut), is hired as housekeeper to an affluent Bel Air family. She speaks no English, but her extreme beauty seems to be an acceptable substitute. "You're gorgeous!" shrieks her new employer, Deborah Clasky (Tea Leoni), a rawboned, recently unemployed designer, crackling with multiple neuroses. Fighting abysmal self-esteem with obsessive exercise, Deborah has little time for daughter Bernice (Sarah Steele), or an occasionally glimpsed younger son. Meanwhile, her husband John (Adam Sandler) is a celebrated chef, who is terrified his restaurant will be awarded four stars and thus lose its homely feel. Unlike his high-strung spouse, whose job loss elicits a screeching "I don't exist!", his hostility to success proves he's not defined by work and therefore much nicer than his wife.

Narrated by Flor's daughter, Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), Spanglish appears to confront immigrant fear and the compromises of assimilation. As Deborah bonds with Cristina, installing her in private school and lavishing her with gifts, Flor ricochets from gratitude to jealousy to anxiety. Will Cristina become estranged from her Mexican roots? But the movie is really about the budding (and predictable) attraction between John and Flor, whom Brooks presents as the epitome of femininity, the answer, in fact, to every American male's prayer.

Spanglish will probably do well at the box office. Vega is lovely, Sandler appealingly low-key and Brooks brings the cultural conflict to a satisfying resolution. However, the film leaves a metallic taste in the mouth. Lurking beneath the feelgood surface is a mean-spiritedness borne almost entirely by the character of Deborah and, by extension, actress Leoni, who is photographed so cruelly she looks like hell from start to finish. Selfish and insensitive - she buys her daughter too-small outfits to make her lose weight - unstable and even unfaithful, she is a monstrous caricature, a woman so ugly she destroys the dramatic logic of the film - we have no idea why perfect John would be with her in the first place.

Flor has the inside track all the way. "American women are afraid of sex, food, motherhood - all that is best in life," she purrs in voiceover, walking on the beach with John while the wind glues her dress to her childbearing hips. To emphasize the point, we're treated to a peculiar sex scene, where Deborah - on top, of course - bounces her way to solitary orgasm while a bemused John remarks, "You don't need me at all, do you?"

Brooks's preference is clear: wise Mexican earth mother trumps competitive American neurotic every time. Spanglish describes itself as "a comedy with a language all its own." What it isn't saying is how much that language looks and sounds like racial, sexist stereotyping.