Movie Breakdown: Problemista

Pre-Screening Stance:

Problemista stars the always great Tilda Swinton, and writer/director/co-star Julio Torres (SNL, Los Espookys) seems to have crafted it into a Michel Gondry-esque sort of trip. I’m in all the way.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Problemista is a wonderfully quirky and poignant film, and I liked it a lot. The story revolves around Alejandro, a gentle immigrant from El Salvador whose dream is to design toys for Hasbro. Since he can’t seem to get hired on there though, he earns a living (money + a visa) at a company called FreezeCorp, where he spends his days archiving the life of a cryogenically frozen artist named Bobby (RZA). After getting fired for accidentally unplugging a not-currently-in-use backup generator, he starts freelancing for Bobby’s wife Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), a difficult and demanding art critic who is desperate to sell her husband’s work (a series of paintings featuring eggs) in order to keep him at FreezeCorp. Life lessons are then learned.

As you’d expect, Swinton is great here. Elizabeth is not a particularly likeable character – she’s pushy, short-tempered, manipulative, and rarely ever content or happy – but Swinton sports a certain sly twinkle in her eye that makes her weirdly compelling. It’s impressive. This is also how I would describe what Julio Torres manages to accomplish both in front of and behind the camera. Alejandro is rather soft spoken and doesn’t seem to have the drive that is needed to achieve the career and life that he wants, which could have made the character annoying, but Torres avoids that with a very endearing performance. He also makes it easy to sympathize with Alejandro via what he surrounds him with in the film, which is surreal but honest, charming, and funny looks at immigration, New York City, workplaces, the internet, and so much more. Kudos to Torres for such an inspired, imaginative, and multifaceted piece of work.

If you’re into things that are a bit left of center, then you should give Problemista a go when it hits theaters this Friday, March 22.

One Last Thought:

I would totally buy a coffee table book that features pictures and descriptions of Alejandro’s offbeat toys.