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IMyREVIEW: A look at three generations of a Mexican-American clan succumbs to cliches.tBy HENRY SHEEHANThe Orange County Register. • ■ * *could be anyone'shen it comes to movies, the Great American Immigrant Saga all too often turns into the Great American Immigrant Soap Opera.Something about the temptation to crowd all the experiences of one social group into two or three generations of a single family -brings out the melodramatic streak in most filmmakers.That list now includes Gregory Nava, the director and co-writer (with Anna Thomas) of “My Family,” the story of a Mexican-American family in Los Angeles from the ’20s through today. Now and again the movie manages to surmount the rudimentary Cliches that already have been attached* tofilmed accqunts/of the j Mexiea mAmerican exp eriencer /'My Family'► Stars: Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales► Behind the scenes: Directed by Gregory Nava. Written by Nava and Anna Thomas. Produced by Thomas.► Playing: Opens today throughout Orange County► Rating: R for language, nudity, sexuality and violence► Grade: C► Running time: 2 hours, 7 minutesBut all too often, it satisfies itself with mothers who are fiercely loving, fathers who are quietly steadfast and sons who are violently angry.Actually, the movie starts with the implicit promise that it has a newer, fresher take. After showing the shocking turn of events that propel young Jose Sanchez (Jacob Vargas) on the road from his native village in Mexico to Los Angeles, a narrator tells us that what we’ve seen isn’t true; it’s just the embellished and romanticized version that. the grown-up Sanchez has told his children for years.Jhqt ypide'/belongs; fp/Taco,SarfchfejCXEdwai^, James / 01T \• i * „ 1 a4,'* i * % * * * * * * - *mos), one of Jose’s kids, now an adult and a writer. His stories, accompanied by sparse narration, are what we are about to see.They break into four episodes: The early days of the Sanchez family, in the ’20s and ’30s, when Jose makes it to Los Angeles and marries the beautiful Maria (Jennifer Lopez), and they start their family; the story of their son Chuco (Esai Morales), a tough guy from the late ’50s, a victim of his own machismo and limited opportunities; and two stories featuring Chuco’s younger brother, Jimmy (Jimmy Smits) around 1980, and which take up more than half the movie.The founding of the Sanchez family suffers from a lack of characterization — Jose and Maria have a sampling of heroic virtues but little else in the way of personality — but the sheer historical interest of their lives gives their episode some life.Aside from a typically intense performance from Morales, the sequences featuring tough-guy Chuco’s rejection of his now middle-aged parents (played by Jenny Gago and Eduardo Lopez Ror, jas) is a lifeless run-thrpugh of astpry — young man with a chip on his shoulder dies a tragic, unnecessary and violent death — that has been done, well, to death.The film’s emotional vistas expand considerably with the sequences featuring Jimmy, a once openhearted kid embittered since he witnessed Chuco’s fate. An ex-con, he is goaded by his sister Toni (Constance Marie) into marrying Isabel (Elpidia Carrillo), a Salvadoran refugee in danger of being deported.More than any other sequence in “My Family,” the improbable marriage and ensuing romance, a nice reversal in itself, has an energizing spontaneity and unpredictability. Smits is at his best with this kind of material.The film appears aimed at broad, middle-American audiences, trying to ring bells of recognition of their own families’ immigrant experiences. The religious, stoic and determined mother Maria, for example, is right out of a Hollywood past of Irish-, Italian, Polish, or colonial pioneer moms. But what makes movie characters come alive are differences, not similarities.“My Family” could be any family and thus,is *no,family at,:alj.
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Wed, May 03, 1995
Page 70
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 25 Aug 2021
Other Publications Near Santa Ana, California
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