If good intentions were enough, "My Family" would be a great movie. As it is, this is an ambitious soap opera that bites off more than it can chew and relies too heavily on cinematic cliches. Still, it's worth a look.
A multi-generational ensemble melodrama from filmmaker Gregory Nava (who also gave us the superlative "El Norte") with a largely Latino cast, "My Family" is the story of the Sanchez family, beginning in the 1920s when Jose Sanchez (Jacob Vargas) begins his journey on foot from Mexico to Los Angeles.
Once he settles into what will become East L.A., Jose begins working as a gardener for well-to-do white families, and eventually meets a domestic named Maria (Jennifer Lopez). They marry and start their own family, manage to overcome seemingly insurmountable difficulties, and, as the Depression hits, they look forward to giving their children a better life.
As the film moves into the 1950s, Jose and Maria are older (now played, respectively, by Eduardo Lopez Rojas and Jenny Gago) and their son Chucho (Esai Morales) is involved in the burgeoning gang element. Ultimately, this lifestyle of drugs and violence will lead to tragedy and will profoundly affect the youngest son Jimmy.
Twenty years later, Jimmy (Jimmy Smits) is a petty thief who has done time and whose lifestyle gives his family fits. When his sister, a former nun who is now working as a political activist, talks him into marrying Isabela, a woman from El Salvador (Elpidia Carrillo) to save her life. Jimmy takes the matter lightly, but what begins as an in-name-only marriage eventually gives his life new meaning and he tries to go straight. Once again, however, tragedy strikes and Jimmy has difficulty coping.
Narrated by Paco (Edward James Olmos), another of Jose's sons, and broken into three distinct segments, the film explores Latino life in America with a touch of spirituality in places. And on another level, it points to the changes in this country over several decades, as well as the disillusionment that often accompanies pursuit of the American Dream.
Director Nava extracts superb performances from all the cast-members, with Carrillo, Smits, Morales, Rojas and Gago as particular standouts. And there are some moving individual sequences, as when Jimmy is finally won over by Isabela as she persuades him to dance with her in the middle of the street (which echoes a "Pied Piper"-sequence earlier in the film).
But the script (by Nava and his wife Anna Thomas) relies far too heavily on stereotypes and cliches (the knife-fight scene so starkly resembles "West Side Story" that you may expect them to start singing). There is humor and heart amid the thick sentimentality, but serious attempts at social significance, especially the depiction of racism, fall flat. And while Olmos' narration is sometimes a lyrical reflection of the action on the screen, there are times when it is merely redundant.
Still, much of the way it's a worthwhile effort, for which Nava is to be commended.
"My Family" is rated R for violence, sex, nudity, profanity and vulgarity.