In Spanglish, Deborah Clasky (Tea Leoni) is the neurotic wife of John Clasky (Adam Sandler), a simple and carefree man who has become a highly acclaimed chef. Deborah is self-absorbed and small-minded, a control freak who blames everyone but herself for her problems. Her selfish patterns have led her into an affair. Evelyn (Cloris Leachman), Deborah’s mother, decides to step in.
Late one evening as Deborah gets into her SUV to slip away for a rendezvous, Evelyn comes out of the bushes where she had been waiting. Running up to the vehicle, Evelyn sticks her head in the rolled-down window, catching Deborah by surprise, and asks if she can “say just one thing.”
“Yes, mother, one thing,” Deborah says with annoyance.
“Deborah, you are going to lose your husband if you don’t stop what you are doing. And you will never find someone as good. There will only be men who you know are cheap and shallow and have no real warmth in their souls. You may have gotten by on those surfaces once, but now you have been spoiled by a good man.”
With fire in her eyes, Evelyn gruffly grabs Deborah’s shoulder and continues. “If you do not act quickly, you will soon cement an awful fate for yourself, a life with no hope of repair which has already begun to turn desperate…” she pauses, “and dumb.”
Deborah is stunned. Then Evelyn smiles widely, her tone changes to a grandmotherly sweetness, as if she had just asked her daughter to run to the grocery rather than told her that her life was in jeopardy. “That’s it,” she says, patting the side of the car. “Drive carefully.”
As Evelyn walks away, Deborah yells, “Well, you’ve done it again, mother…made me hate myself…one of the things I can count on.”
Evelyn turns around and says matter-of-factly, “Honey, lately, your low self-esteem is just good common sense.”
From PreachingToday.com
