Dying is easy, the old saying goes, but comedy is harder. This is doubly true when it comes to translating a successful comedic persona to the big screen; consider Heartbeeps, the singularly dire sole lead vehicle for legendary avant-comic Andy Kaufman, or the bizarrely non-bizarre network sitcom Mulaney. For every Woody Allen or Albert Brooks, there are a dozen would-be next-big-things whose more idiosyncratic edges were mercilessly ground down by Hollywood orthodoxy and the iron grip of the three-act plot structure. A good Jerk is hard to find, and getting harder.

So it was with a good deal of trepidation that I approached Problemista, the cinematic debut of writer-director-star Julio Torres. Torres, for the unfamiliar, is one of the most unique exciting comedic voices to emerge in the past decade. Like Kaufman, his standup is a nearly unclassifiable mix of deadpan meta-humor and unconventional prop comedy, and his distinct voice can be heard clearly in both his work as an SNL writer (he penned the viral “Papyrus” skit, starring our reigning Ken Ryan Gosling) and his brilliant-but-canceled TV series Los Espookys, in which he starred alongside co-creators Fred Armisen and Ana Fabrega. Thankfully, Problemista does not break Torres’ streak; it is as weird and wonderful as anything Torres has created thus far, and announces him as a major force both in front of and behind the camera.

Torres stars as Alejandro Martinez, an aspiring toymaker who leaves the protection and guidance of his conceptual artist mother in El Salvador to make a name for himself in New York City. Unfortunately, his melancholy yet whimsical designs– a slinky which refuses to descend a staircase, Cabbage Patch dolls equipped with smartphones that reveal the sad banality of their lives– fail to impress the talent scouts at Hasbro, forcing Alejandro to work as a custodian at a shady cryogenics lab for artists. When that job falls through as well, Alejandro takes a job as custodial assistant to Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), an art critic and widow (is that the right word?) of one of the patients frozen at the clinic. Elizabeth, Ale soon learns, is known as “the Hydra of the New York art scene” (“When one problem is solved, two grow back in its place”), and is, by all appearances, the most difficult and aggravating woman on the face of the earth. Still, Ale needs to remain employed to keep his work visa, so he must continue to catalog Elizabeth’s husband’s near-identical egg paintings and pretend he knows how to use FileMaker Pro– at least until he can land that gig at Hasbro.

Problemista establishes its extravagant brand of whimsy in its opening moments, presenting Ale’s childhood and move to New York as a fairy tale, complete with twinkly narration from indie film den mother Isabella Rossellini. Everything here is exaggerated at least a few degrees from reality, from Ale’s comically tiny apartment (which he shares with an indeterminate number of hipster roommates) to the running, Gilliamesque fantasies in which he is an endlessly put-upon knight. But just as crucial to its charm is the extent to which the film’s world is recognizably our own, at this moment. Most of us will (probably) never work in an upscale cryo boutique, but it is a pitch-perfect stand-in for any number of shitty day jobs in our increasingly dystopian gig economy. Likewise, in one of the film’s funniest running gags, Torres dramatizes the usually uncinematic ordeal of browsing Craigslist by representing the site as a mischievous trickster demon played by actor-comedian Larry Owens (“Booooowflex… Slightly uuuuuuused!”). Like the best satirists, Torres takes familiar situations and warps them into something strange and unsettlingly hilarious. 

I’ve seen Problemista twice now: first at an IFFBoston preview screening last summer, scheduled before the dueling SAG and WGA strikes delayed its release by several months, and again this week as a refresher for this review. Upon my second viewing, I was even more struck by the delicate balancing act of Swinton’s performance. Elizabeth is, of course, a caricature, at once outrageously over the top and instantly recognizable; I promise you’ve dealt with an Elizabeth in your life, whether as a coworker, as a customer in a retail setting, or even within your own family. Her many tics, from her passive-aggressive treatment of service workers to her constantly-blazing iPhone flashlight, are all among the most keenly observed parody you will see all year. Yet there is also an undeniable humanity to her, which tends to breach when the subject of her husband’s art is raised (her husband, Bobby, is played in flashback by Wu-Tang mastermind RZA, and the two of them make for a surprisingly touching screen couple). Elizabeth is awful, but also deeply damaged, but also a fiery advocate for the arts, and Swinton deftly plays all three of these sides in nearly every scene, while also remaining howlingly funny. It’s one of the most flamboyant and memorable roles of the actress’s career– no small feat.

But you don’t need me to tell you that Tilda Swinton is great; that’s one of the immutable laws of cinema. The real story here is Torres, who announces himself fully formed as both a filmmaker and a leading man. Though very different from the brooding “Chocolate Prince” he played on Los Espookys, Alejandro is instantly identifiable as “the Julio Torres character”: deadpan and self-effacing yet infectiously optimistic, at once a hapless Millennial everyman and an ethereal, galaxy-brained dreamer. The film is tailor-made to Torres’ persona, incorporating both his (presumably) autobiographical perspective as a queer, first-generation immigrant and, through Alejandro’s toy designs, his peculiar take on prop comedy. Time will tell where Torres’ career will lead him, but I can easily see his cowlick and Chaplinesque shuffle joining the ranks of iconic comic personae.

Perhaps inevitably for a film (and filmmaker) so bursting with ideas, not everything here lands; a subplot involving Ale’s relationship with his mother never quite resonates as deeply as it should, and a kinky Craigslist encounter can’t quite decide whether it wants to be a moment of cringe comedy, rock-bottom desperation, or earnest eroticism. But these are minor misgivings for a film this fresh and funny, warmhearted and deeply, deeply weird. I have no doubt that Julio Torres’ star is on the rise, and I suspect his films will grow more assured and ambitious as he gains experience. Yet there is something thrilling in witnessing the early, unfiltered vision, a cavalcade of ideas Torres has clearly been stockpiling for exactly this moment. Problemista will almost certainly stand as one of the most charming and idiosyncratic comedies of the year– and I can’t wait to see more.

Problemista
2023
dir. Julio Torres
104 min.

Now playing @ Coolidge Corner Theatre