Many Thoughts and Reflections of this World

Tale of two actually similar films, despite the different genre used...

Horse Whisperer and Spanglish...


Annie Maclean and John Clasky:

Characters are very similar.  Annie Maclean is in a miserable marriage with Robert Maclean, who is jealous of her success as an editor, although he is a lawyer himself.  John Clasky is in a bad marriage with Deborah Clasky, who is self-centered and at times jealous of John's success as a chef.

Both Annie and John are sensitive, caring people.  Both of them had kids they deeply care about.  Bernice Clasky is close to Grace Maclean's age; both are 13 going on 14.

Both Annie and John deal with career pressures as well as home pressures.  Annie gets a lot of flack from gossip columnists; at one point, she mutters, That shit at one awful article and she and some of her co-workers want to sue.  John is dealing with a four-star review and his co-workers are pressuring him to make his restaurants more "touristy," but he doesn't want to do that and mumbles, Fuck you at one article in almost a similar fashion to Annie's That shit.

Both Annie and John struggle with low self-esteem and put up with too much from their spouses, who treat them poorly.  Annie struggles with many fears and desperately tries to mask them behind a know-it-all front while John deals with his lack of self confidence by attempting to appear calm and having a cheerful front.  Both coping methods drive their spouses mad and as a result, both of their spouses attack and criticize them.

Both John and Annie are extremely intelligent and creative and are good problem solvers.  Both are really there for their kids, even when their kids are going thru awkward, troubled, painful times.  Both are very good people who, despite great obstacles, ridicule, put-downs, pressures, and temptations, do the right thing, esp. at the end and try hard not to hurt anyone.  The temptations both of them face are very similar...


Tom Booker and Flor Moreno:


Tom is the "other man" that Annie is tempted to cheat with while Flor is the "other woman" that John is tempted to have an affair with.  Both neither give in to the temptation.  Tom and Annie are very, very attracted to one another and even sexual feelings fly between them, but both Annie and Tom understand that it would be unwise to persue an affair while Annie is still entangled with Robert.  They also understand that Annie's true home is back east in New York City; despite Annie's liking visiting the country, she knows that homesickness will set in and that she really needs to get back home and finalize things one way or the other with Robert and get back home to her daughter.

John faces a similar dilemma, although in this case, it is Flor who is visiting and Flor who must make the decision for both herself and her daughter Cristina to return home to her own apartment and that she feels more comfortable among other Spanish-speaking folks and her working-class neighborhood.

Like Tom, John knows he has to let Flor go back home, although both are very painful decisions.  Annie cannot stop crying for half of her drive back to New York City after she tells Tom goodbye and Flor must deal with Cristina being angry and dissappointed and they also shed a few tears also.  Flor also has to deal with a jealous outburst from Deborah, who demands to know "what happened" between her and John as Deborah, although has cheated on John herself, suspects John of cheating with Flor.  Robert also indirectly accuses Annie of having an affair with Tom, so Annie must deal with Robert's jealous binge also...which comes to their lousy spouses.


Robert Maclean and Deborah Clasky:

Both are very insecure, jealous people who leach onto their spouses, trying to get as much as they can, yet peradoxically are resentful of their spouses' successes.  Robert is an attorney, but still is envies Annie's career as an editor and later an author.  Deborah, who is unemployed, enjoys the luxuries that John's salary provides, yet is jealous of John's success as a chef and his bond with their children.  Deborah and Robert criticize their spouses' parenting, which indicates the envy there.  Robert ridicules Annie for wanting to take Grace and Pilgrim to the Booker ranch; Deborah berates John for not being "on the same page," which is really a guise for doing everything her way.

Robert, to his credit, is a fairly good dad to Grace while Deborah is almost as awful to the kids as she is to John and her mother, Evelyn.   Deborah constantly criticizes her kids, which causes them to distance themselves from her, which angers her and makes her even more jealous and resentful of John.  Robert, although a good dad to Grace, is not good to Annie; he also is critical of her and frequently puts her down, which causes Annie to distance herself from him and act cold with him and also to put on her know-it-all front, which further incites Robert's jealousy and ire.

Both Annie and John are deeply hurt by their spouses' actions and cruel words.  Robert and Deborah both cruelly insinuate that their spouses don't love them as much as they supposedly love them and appeal to the old cliche of How can you love a man/woman like me facade.

Both the Clasky marriage and the Maclean marriages are headed for divorce by the end of the film.


Themes explored in both films...

Two cultures meeting:

Spanglish has two cultures meeting, the working-class immigrant Mexican community meeting with the affluent Anglo, English-speaking culture.  The two cultures in Horse Whisperer are even more different; it's a meeting of large east coast sophisticated city meeting with rural, unsophisticated western Montana culture.

Flor and Annie are dealing with culture shock, since they (along with their daughters) are venturing into a foreign world.  Both are initially enchanted by the trappings and positive things of the different culture they visit; Flor and Cristina are at first dazzled by the large beach house and expensive furniture and huge rooms; Annie's breath is taken away by the country beauty of the wide open spaces of the ranch farm and is rather charmed by the old-fashioned, quaint farm family she visits.

Deborah esp. butters up Cristina and tries to butter up Flor while Tom butters up Annie and invites her on various country "adventures" and even takes her horseback riding.  Annie is fearful of horseback riding at first, but end up enjoying it although she bounces uncontrollably and ends up with a very sore backside.

Their daughters are also taken in by the charm of the other culture and even take to adapting some of the work there; Cristina collects colored rocks for John and earns lots of money doing it and is enchanted by the beach while Grace works and takes care of the horse stables and gets to know the animals on the farm.

Just as the Bookers find Annie exotic and fascinating, most of the Claskys are intrigued by Flor.  Bernice, John, and George become interested in Mexican culture and pick up a few Spanish words.

But both Flor and Annie realize that while they enjoy visiting this other world, they cannot stay permanently; they know they must return to their respective homes.  Flor, although it is hard for her and she must give up a decent-paying job and disappoint her daughter, musters up the courage to leave the Clasky house because she knows that the marriage is not healthy and also does not want to get in the middle of John and Deborah's marital problems.  She also knows that Deborah is a toxic user who is exploiting Cristina and Bernice as well as John.

Annie, despite her enjoying her visit to the country and the Booker's company, knows she must return to New York City, re-start her career and maybe get her long-awaited dream of being an author off the ground, decide whether she will stay with Robert and try marital counseling or split from Robert, bring Pilgrim back home also, and most importantly get back home to Grace as she promised and finish raising her.  It is very painful for her to say goodbye to Tom and as she drives toward NY, she can't stop sobbing for a long time, but like Flor, in her heart, she knows it is the right thing to do.  Both Flor and Annie along with Cristina and Grace, gain a greater appreciation for their own culture, ironically by visiting another one, then returning home again.


Early teenhood and growing up, the kids:

Grace, Cristina, Bernice, George are growing up, esp. the girls are in their pre-teen years and early teen years.  Cristina is around eleven going on twelve while Grace and Bernice are thirteen going on fourteen.  Esp. Bernice and Grace are dealing with a very awkward age is just about to enter high school the following fall.  Grace lost part of her leg in an accident and is dealing with body image adjustments because of it; it is Annie who comforts her as they both cry together and Annie who, despite her own tears, reassures Grace that she is still an attractive, lovely young woman and that someone will love her as she is.

Bernice, is in the early teen "chubby" phase and has lots of self-esteem problems.  Deborah aggravates it further by making cruel remarks about her weight, buying her too-slim clothing and nagging at her to lose weight.  Bernice cries also when Deborah buys her to too-small clothing and tells her that she "doesn't need that" with many of the food she eats.  Like Annie, however, John and his mother-in-law, Evelyn, try to mend the damage Deborah does by reassuring Bernice that she is fine as is, that she is kind and loveable and that they accept her as she is and that one day, others will also.

Annie, Flor, and John worry themselves nearly mad about their kids...whether their kids will fit in or whether they will be thought of as "odd," their kids doing well in school and succeeding in life.  All three of them also from time to time doubt themselves as parents, even though all three of them are excellent, caring parents.  Despite their kids going thru rebellious times and self-image struggles themselves, the end of both films leaves viewers thinking, These kids are going to come out all right despite all they've been through.


Bittersweet endings:


Both films have a rather sad, bittersweet, yet not depressing ending.   There are lots of tears toward the end of both films, yet the heroes deep down inside, know that the sadness and tears won't last long.  We suspect Annie's tears will dry by the time she gets back home to NYC and that once she gets started as an author and divorces Robert, she will be a lot happier and her self-esteem will improve.  

Ditto Flor, Cristina, and John.  John is finally getting the courage to leave Deborah after he finds out about her adultery and take the kids while we can see that despite Cristina shouting and crying and being initially angry at Flor for "ruining it all" for her, Cristina is coming to understand why Flor did what she did and as Cristina herself reveals in the end, she is applying to Princeton U., which indicates that, at some point, she and her mom reached a compromise and Flor let her grow up while staying proud of her culture and roots. 

So, how's that for the tale of two films?

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Had the most hilarious thought on five film characters combined with the film Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, but haven't worked out all the details...

The five lucky winners of a silver ticket are:

1. Lester Burnham - American Beauty
2. Deborah Clasky - Spanglish
3. Raymond Avila - Internal Affairs
4. Dick Tracy - Dick Tracy
5. Amy Wallace - Internal Affairs

Perhaps they open a can of juice or soda and see it there.

Of course, four of them are kind of stupid and bratty and bring about their own come-uppances...

1. Lester - Acts stupid and cynical about everything and gets high on drugs, so he gets turned into a powder and blown up a high pipe.
2. Raymond - For him, the ends justifies the means; his tooth for a tooth mentality and stupid jealousy has him twist into a pretzel...this time literally.  He gets salt poured on him and he's rolled down and alley and hung on display in a hot room.
3. Deborah - Is obsessed with being thin and with weight and dieting, so she's turned into a giant leaf, but the rabbits find her stale, so they toss her down a chute of stale and spoiled veggies.
4. Dick - Overconfident and arrogant and pushes others around.  So he gets his push and is turned into a yellow gumball and bounced about in a big machine with other gumballs.

Amy turns out the winner, since she's the least rotten; she's the only one who doesn't act stupid, selfish or demanding, so she wins all the juice and soda she can have for life.  In addition, when she retires from the police force, many soda and juice companies have a 401K plan for her, so she can retire in comfort.

This plot is borrowed from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, only with different characters and different products, but still the same concept and principle.

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I'm also preserving this...

( Second film here... )

Current mood: awake.
Current music: We Belong - Pat Benatar.

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I posted this one in the Roseanne community, but wanted to preserve my own copy of this here...

( First re-union film... )

Current mood: accomplished.

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Also, the BSC is also getting ready to graduate from college as of next week.

Kristy and two others have already begun the makings to start a business for left-handed ppl.

Mary Anne is student-teaching and will be starting her graduate degree in the fall.

Mona is interning as a vet's assistant this summer and next year and is starting her graduate degree this fall.

Claudia is joining Kristy to help her advertise and will be starting up her own advertising agency.

Stacey is interning in a space lab and will be starting her graduate degree in the fall.

Abby has joined a semi-pro soccor team and will be traveling and playing on that team in the fall.

Anna is now with a band and also will be touring and traveling.  They are also working on a CD.

Dawn is starting an internship and possible career in archeology.

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Six future law students...

1. Harry Potter
2. Lavender Brown
3. Dean Thomas
4. Susan Bones
5. Hannah Abbott
6. Blaise Zabini

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