PROBLEMISTA – Surreal Immigrant’s Story Falls Flat!

PROBLEMISTA is written and directed by Julio Torres; it’s his directorial debut. The film stars Torres and Tilda Swinton.

Alejandro is a young man from El Salvador living in the United States seeking to become a toy designer with Hasbro. When he’s let go from the gig he had to make ends meet, he must scramble to find a new sponsor to remain in the USA, avoiding deportation. He strikes up an unlikely friendship who a belligerent older woman who was once an art critic, hoping to get the sponsorship he needs to keep himself in the States while taking on odd jobs to pay the rent. Will he achieve his toy design dream, or will he find himself out of time and forced to return to his country of origin?

Prior to being invited to my screening of PROBLEMISTA, I wasn’t aware of Julio Torres, but was certainly intrigued by the premise of this film; the struggle of those moving to the United States is a compelling subject for a feature film, and A24 is a studio with a knack for finding quirky off-the-beaten-path films with many undiscovered talents that show great potential. PROBLEMISTA has a lot of interesting things to say in its commentaries of the struggles of immigrants in the USA, but the film is a messy one, over-the-top and ridiculous, presenting audiences with a bitter, unlikable character they won’t want to spend 100 minutes with.

I can praise PROBLEMISTA for the performance of its leading man, Julio Torres, who also directed and wrote the film. This young man’s plight is certainly a relatable one. Even if you’re not an immigrant yourself, you’ll sympathize with his situation and struggle just to make ends meet to stay employed. Torres is the ideal timid everyman facing a society with many obstacles, and some degree of this story is bound to hit close to home for you in one way or another, whether it’s an unjust banking system with hidden fees or the logistics of applying for a job online. Many of the scenes geared around commentaries on modern society and the obstacles those struggling are hit with speak for themselves; these are often told in a surreal manner.

A major issue with PROBLEMISTA, however, is it can’t decide if it wants to be a film about the immigrant struggle in the United States, or art house cinema. Sadly, it comes up flat in both departments. The film takes the ideology of “show don’t tell” to new heights, using ridiculous surreal imagery for the simplest of tasks that could’ve been shown through a few lines of dialogue or frames of film. Online searches for employment, for example, are depicted by an over-the-top man in a strange cyber dimension spouting off positions in scenes that border on lunacy. Similarly, Alejandro’s arguments are depicted as him being a medieval knight in a cave doing battle with a literal hydra, when another character in the film is likened to one. The movie’s got vision, no questions asked, but PROBLEMISTA is at its best when it keeps things simple, and sadly, subtlety isn’t a priority here.

Arguably the biggest problem with the film is Tilda Swinton’s character. I love Tilda Swinton. She’s an extremely talented actress who can take on any role, be it The Ancient One in DOCTOR STRANGE or a multi-part role (which included a male character!) in the SUSPIRIA remake. But in PROBLEMISTA, she’s a bitter Karen with dyed hair who audiences will quickly be disgusted by. A purpose of storytelling in film is to show how people grow and evolve over time. But this isn’t A CHRISTMAS CAROL, where Mr. Scrooge becomes a good man after seeing the effort of his ways. Swinton’s character is the anti-Scrooge, gaining nothing from her experiences and grating on viewers’ nerves from start to finish. It’s rare I go through an entire movie wanting one of the leads to die, but it’s what I wanted here. The moral of the story here seems to be that being a Karen is the only way to get what you want in the world. I love Swinton and she does the best she can in the role, but not even she’s capable of making this bitter old vengeful crone likable.

The film also tries to juggle too many storylines, characters, and plot points. This combined with the surreal nature of the storytelling makes for something that just falls flat in every area. PROBLEMISTA feels like about three or four different movies crammed together in 100 minutes, including an immigrant’s struggles, a disenfranchised older woman’s position in the world, a surreal art house story, and a science fiction drama. To say the film is “too much” would be an understatement.

PROBLEMISTA shows the tremendous potential of its director/writer/leading man Julio Torres, who I have no doubt will one day go on to a fantastic career in the entertainment world. If he wants to succeed in the business, however, he needs to embrace the ideal that less is more. I can’t quite recommend the film despite its potential, but I do have a feeling this is a man who we’ll be embracing the later work of one day.