A Contemporary Film Analysis: Spanglish

Introduction

For this film analysis, I chose Spanglish. In this movie a Mexican immigrant, who was also a single mother, moved to the states to establish a better life for her and her child. She finally found a housekeeping job with a well-off couple, Deborah and John Clasky. Flora, the Mexican immigrant, could not handle the crazy schedule of housekeeping and her daughter’s, Cristina, schedule. When Flora expressed her struggles to the Clasky family, they suggested her and her daughter move in. As they adjusted to the different culture clash and high tension of trying to share space and raise their own children on very different terms, Flora saw behind the scenes.

Time Change in the Relationship

From the jump, John and Deborah showed true love but you instantly knew they were extremely busy and had insecurities about their marriage. John being a very successful restaurant owner and his wife could not find a place to fit in for the life of her. Weeks went by and Flora soon realized that the couple was not as happy as they should have been. Due to Deborah’s insecurities, this made the couple become very distant and then they both started living a separate life as a married couple. Considering John’s crazy, busy life Deborah did not receive the attention she wanted which in the end, she decided to cheat on her husband. Once Deborah confessed her affair to John; John turned to confessing his love to Flora. Due to this incident, Flora ultimately had to give up a really good job to distant herself from John and Deborah’s crazy marriage and potential drama that would have been brought with it.

Communication Patterns

Relationships tend to end quite quickly when there is a lack of communication, especially when times get hard. As I discussed, Deborah and John’s marriage quickly came to an end in only a couple months. Deborah has sort of an aggressive style of communication meaning she believes her needs are the most important compared to everyone around her. This is a very ineffective communication style due to the fact people will get lost in the message because they are way too busy reacting to the way it is actually delivered. John has a very submissive style of communication; he pleases other people and also avoids conflicts. He avoided his wife as much as possible.

Strengths, Challenges, and Life Cycle Stage

One of the strengths that I saw throughout the movie was even through difficult times was that John and Deborah raised two adolescents before they made their issues more public. Physical attraction can be a huge strength in a struggling marriage sometimes. John and Deborah displayed this strength greatly even though they showed little to no passion of wanting to be with each other. When two very different goal-oriented people get married, they display struggles because they live different lives as they face very different life goals. Deborah was the type of woman that needed attention, materialistic items, and wanted others to think highly of her; John on the other hand was profound of his children and the small accomplishments in his personal life including his restaurant. Life stages have a huge effect on relationships especially as they get older. Woman feel as if they are not attractive so they struggle with keeping up their appearance and try to act younger than they really are. Deborah was the one woman who felt the need to push her insecurities on her own children which in the end made her children insecure because their mom felt bad about herself. “There is a large body of literature linking stressful life events with the onset, severity and course of depression” (Whisman, 2016).

Self-Reflection

Needing to focus on the important things in life I would regain focus on my marriage and even my children. Focusing on other things in life is a downfall to a weak and failed marriage. If regaining my focus was not enough for my marriage I would go to family therapy so I can see/hear their feelings and try to understand where they are coming from and then express to them on how I feel.

Conclusion

After watching Spanglish, I came to conclusion that there is a lot more than what it seems that go into a marriage; there is also a lot that goes into a family relationship as well. Through personal experience, when a family is having issues in their own relationship, the children actually get involved. With that being said, using the correct form of communication in front of children and peers, it will make the relationship a lot stronger than previously.