Problemista review: Surrealist comedy has no problem getting laughs

Problemista, the debut film from stand-up comedian, SNL Melania whisperer, and Los Espookys co-creator Julio Torres, lands closer to UHF than Being John Malkovich, creating a slick and consistently hilarious comedic satire that aims to please more than challenge. Abandoning the confidence of his “Space Prince” stage persona, Torres lowers his status as Alejandro, an aspiring toymaker who immigrates from his mother’s compound in El Salvador to the grime-caked apartments of Brooklyn.

To appeal to a broader audience, debut films from comedians often serve two masters. There’s the space for plot and character but also moments for their stage persona to take over. Torres performs a unique form of prop comedy, recontextualizing found or made objects as mundane and absurd. A seashell becomes a smartphone. A well is now a playset for melancholic boys. A subtle crystal formation can be a coughing best friend. And like Weird Al’s TV tangents in UHF, every so often, Problemista will take a break for Ale to explore some unplayable toy.

Creating instruments of play allows Torres to adapt his comedy to the screen. In Alejandro’s hands, a toy shouldn’t encourage play but achievement and understanding. For example, a toy car with a deflating tire can teach children about the impermanence of life. But the object of most interest in Problemista is Ale’s employer, Elizabeth, played by Tilda Swinton with the pearl-clutching fury of being told she missed a Genius Bar reservation. When Alejandro arrives in America, he takes a job at a cryogenics company, monitoring the body of Elizabeth’s husband, Bobby (RZA), an artist of some note known for his paintings of eggs. Elizabeth enlists Alejandro on an egg hunt for Bobby’s missing paintings in exchange for sponsoring his immigration and allowing him to apply for a job at Hasbro. Like the many underemployed masses of the modern age, Ale has become a rich weirdo’s assistant.

The strength of Torres’ comedy is in his specificity, particularly for the Big Apple’s fluorescent-lit spaces that haven’t been painted since 2011 when offices and apartments adopted modern minimalist aesthetics. The dinginess of Torres’ New York highlights the filth built up in the last 15 years. Apartments slathered with white paint, cracking Ikea particleboard furniture that’s traveled from three or four apartments, and empty Gatorade bottles, all paid for through lurid Craigslist gigs, line the most hilarious settings of the film. There’s comedic gold to be mined in those spaces.

Problemista works best outside Ale’s dreams as his characters contend with the obsolete hardware imprisoning their digital necessities. Swinton paws at, pinches, and swipes across her iPad’s photo gallery like a puma devouring a gazelle. “Don’t yell at me,” she barks anytime anyone anywhere asks her to describe any problem she’s ever had, staying a step ahead in the TekWar of her mind. Ale isn’t immune to her whims and faces a reality where he is not only expected to understand FileMaker Pro but also [gasp] burn a CD. The sheer amount of outdated technology from the all-too-recent past is enough for a Problemista drinking game.

The control that Elizabeth holds over technology is directly related to whom she has working the mouse. Not so for Ale, who sees the intricate world of the internet as a sinister hellscape. Ale’s finances dip into Broad City territory as he sublets his room to a dude whose only function is to walk through a living room and politely say, “Hey, what’s up?” To make ends meet, he’s pulled into the world of Craigslist, visualized as a glitching SPAM monster (Larry Owens) that ensnares its prey with demeaning work for rent money.

Navigating the wiles of capitalism would be difficult enough for Ale, who spends the movie optimistically crawling through labyrinthine bureaucracy but never getting anywhere. It’s an image that’s become the film’s calling card: an M.C. Escher Billy Bookcase that Ale crawls through like a hamster in a cage. It’s a remarkably simple and profound representation of the myth of American meritocracy as potent as anything constructed by Terry Gilliam or Charlie Kaufman. It’s not the only one. At cluttered immigration offices, Ale watches fellow beleaguered immigrants vanish without a trace, fading away like Ale prevented Marty McFly’s parents from kissing at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance. Problemista has a strong understanding of capitalism’s many indignities: the frightened but aggressive people it produces, the dead tech still in use, and the cruel bureaucracy that holds people’s lives hostage. It’s a world replete with Catch-22s: Can’t get a job without a visa, can’t get a visa without a job.

Ale never ignores the stakes, though, and Torres’ tight script pays off nearly everything it sets up, making the conclusion a bit more pat for the types of questions he’s asking. Ale’s journey requires him to act like Elizabeth to achieve his goal, letting Elizabeth’s abhorrent behavior off the hook. For all of its strengths, though, Problemista ties its themes and story together in a way that slowly unravels the more it’s integrated.

Torres’ internal universe struggles to live side-by-side with his New York. Like in Brazil, the internal quest of Problemista uses fairy-tale imagery to tell the hero’s story of achievement and self-actualization. But outside the splendid Craigslist sequences and a beautiful scene with Past Lives’ Greta Lee, the world he creates feels empty, as if awaiting more digital accouterments. The look and structure of the film make it more crowd-pleasing than expected, especially for anyone hoping for a Charlie Kaufman head-scrambler. It lacks the confidence of Everything Everywhere All At Once, a similarly fantastical immigrant story that’s occasionally too cute for its own good.

There’s no doubt that should Torres continue, Problemista will eventually look like a scrappy first album filled with promising primordial quirks. The film’s issues do not impede it from being a fleet-footed comedy filled with laugh-out-loud jokes. Torres takes his themes seriously, and while he seems less sure about how to tie them together as neatly as they’re presented, he unapologetically communicates his point of view and comedic sensibility. For Problemista, laughs are no problem.