Review: 'Problemista' is loaded with ideas and overstuffed with whimsy, but Tilda Swinton almost saves it
There’s a habit some first-time filmmakers fall into, particularly when they’re not so sure of their talents like director/writer/star Julio Torres is in his comedy “Problemista,” that they cram every idea they ever had into their first movie, because they’re not sure they’re going to get a second one.
Torres, a former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” plays Alejandro, who has come to New York from his home in El Salvador with a dream to make toys for Hasbro. He has a notebook full of offbeat ideas, like creating cellphones for Cabbage Patch Dolls, but can’t get the folks running Hasbro’s internship program to give him a shot. To satisfy his visa requirements, he has a job monitoring the tube holding an artist, Bobby (RZA), frozen in a cryogenic chamber.
When Alejandro innocently, and very briefly, unplugs the chamber, the cryogenic lab fires him. Now, as his immigration caseworker tells him, the clock is ticking — he has 30 days to secure a new job, and find a sponsor who will sign his paperwork, or he will be deported back to El Salvador and his toy-making dreams will end.
After exploring several options, including the glitter-covered dumpster that is Craigslist, Alejandro comes to believe his only shot at saving his visa is working for Bobby’s wife, Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), a flighty art critic who has a plan to pay the rent on Bobby’s cryogenic chamber by mounting a gallery show of Bobby’s paintings — all beautifully rendered pictures of eggs. It doesn’t take long for Alejandro to see that Elizabeth is demanding to the point of insanity; a former assistant refers to her as the Hydra, because if you solve one of her problems, two more grow in its place.
As a writer, Torres has a dry, absurdist humor, particularly when tackling such topics as the pretensions of the art world and Elizabeth’s refusal to deal maturely with a woman (played by “Past Lives” star Greta Lee) with whom Bobby once had a dalliance. As a director, Torres suggests the whimsical imagery that Wes Anderson would make if he were a gay Salvadoran working with a budget of a buck-fifty. And as an actor, he’s one of the most annoying screen presences I’ve seen in a long time.
Swinton’s fire-and-ice performance nearly rescues the whole enterprise. In a magenta fright wig and a wardrobe that conjures an image of someone walking into a closet and coming out wearing the first six things they touched, Swinton captures Elizabeth’s erratic entitlement perfectly. Torres tries to match Swinton’s mad energy with his whimsical visuals, but he can never keep up.
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‘Problemista’
★★1/2
Opens Friday, March 22, in theaters. Rated R for some language and sexual content. Running time: 104 minutes.