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Luckily, other elements of the project come to the rescue. The children are aptly cast, and the subtitled translations of baby Sunny's coos and cackles are very funny. Jude Law provides the voice-over narration as writer Lemony Snicket, and his moody musings make up the bulk of the best lines in Robert Gordon's screenplay. And cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer Colleen Atwood, who had previously teamed up to give Sleepy Hollow its distinctive look, create another grim landscape that manages to be beautiful in its beastliness.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events will likely be successful enough to warrant more entries in this burgeoning film franchise. Let's just hope that next time around, everyone won't have to work so hard to turn it into more than a one-man show.Already, there's been a lot of talk regarding the often odious behavior of the four characters at the center of the ferocious water-cooler piece Closer. Yet I would gladly invite this quartet over to my house for Christmas dinner if in return I would never have to spend another minute with Tea Leoni's unbearable character from James L. Brooks' Spanglish.With an Oscar out of the question, Leoni should probably win some sort of Good Sport award for enduring the humiliations that Brooks throws her way in this otherwise easy-to-take comedy-drama. The actress, who already played (nicely, I might add) a neurotic in Flirting With Disaster, is now forced to take that charac-terization to the extreme -- her Deborah Clasky is presented as a miserable excuse for a compan-ion, a wife and mother whose behavior doesn't make her intriguing, merely insufferable. Having already navigated Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger and Holly Hunter to magnificent performances in Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News (and overrated Helen Hunt to an inexplicable Oscar for As Good As It Gets), Brooks probably figured he was doing the actress a favor by handing her a role that allowed her to throw all caution to the wind. Yet instead, the movie's true star is a newcomer to American cinema, celebrated Spanish actress Paz Vega.
Vega delivers a luminescent performance in the movie's largest part: Flor, a Mexican immigrant with brainy 12-year-old daughter Cristina (Shelbie Bruce) in tow. While Cristina learns to speak English during their years living in LA, Flor never makes the effort, meaning it's an uphill climb once she leaves their Hispanic community to seek employment among the gringos. Flor lands a job as housekeeper for Debbie Klasky and her husband John (Adam Sandler), a soft-spoken chef constantly working at being a good dad to an insecure daughter (terrific Sarah Steele) and a patient husband to his lunatic wife. But as Debbie's behavior continues to alienate everyone around her, John finds himself seeking solace in the company of Flor, a development that could lead to complications down the line.
Brooks is nothing if not an ambitious writer, and his script manages to address pertinent issues ranging from the oversized (and often casually cruel) expectations parents place on their offspring to the difficulty of remaining true to one's own cultural heritage when there's a shinier one just within reach. In most respects, Brooks handles these themes with sensitivity, and most of his cast responds in kind. Sandler has rarely been this laid back on screen, while Cloris Leachman, as Leoni's booze-guzzling mother, sparkles in the sort of colorful role that usually wins veteran actors a nomination or two during awards season. Indeed, the only sour note in this melodious movie comes from Leoni's character, and fortunately, it's ultimately not enough to cripple the film.As one of the proud members of America's Eleven -- i.e., one of those 11 moviegoers in the continental US who didn't understand the big deal about the box office smash Ocean's Eleven -- my expectations weren't exactly sky-high for Ocean's Twelve. Except for a couple of self-contained set pieces and some fine work by Brad Pitt, Elliot Gould and Bernie Mac, Steven Soderbergh's 2001 remake of the 1960 Rat Pack yarn (itself a mediocre "home movie" masquerading as a studio film) wasted lots of top talent in a threadbare project that had nothing going on beneath its air of cool collectedness.Ocean's Twelve is more of the same: a bunch of pampered, overpaid movie stars getting together with their directing buddy to shoot scenes for a film in between their nonstop partying through European and American hot spots. Only this time, instead of feeling like I was being forcibly ejected from the club, I at least felt like I was allowed a seat at the bar. Ocean's Twelve isn't much better than its predecessor, but at least there's a more focused attempt to create something tangible. There are more laughs, more satisfying complications, and more material for some of its star players to sink their million-dollar teeth into.
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