Problemista Movie Review

“Problemista” is a funny name for a funny little movie. The main character is an unstoppable force of light-hearted optimism. But then he meets an unmovable object of pessimistic bitterness. What ever could happen when these two meet? It’s a comical cascade of calamities that can bring a smile to even the coldest heart.

As a young boy growing up in El Salvador, Alejandro has a mother determined to allow the boy to become the very best and the follow his heart. How do we know this? Because this is all explained by the Narrator (voiced by Isabella Rossellini). His mother, Dolores (played by Catalina Saavedra) even makes her boy a wondrous fort in the forest.

Alejandro, who is nicknamed “Ale” (pronounced ‘Allie’) grows up and wants to design toys for Hasbro. But his toys will be different. They will reflect the difficulties of real life. He designed a toy truck – but with a flat tire. He invents a new type of Slinky – one that is too scared to go down the stairs. He comes up with Cabbage Patch dolls – but with cell phones. That way they can get on social media and diss each other.

The only way for Allie (played by Julio Torres) to sign up for the intern program at Hasbro is to be in the United States. He comes to New York City to apply into the program. Once he has the intern job, he can get a Green Card and stay to create is wonderful toys. Except that he gets rejected and now has no job. He is stuck with a little money and even less hope.

Allie starts a job at a place called FreezeCorp — where they freeze people, hoping to be able to revive them in the future. He gets assigned a freezer for an artist named Bobby (played by RZA). Bobby’s wife is a neurotic, frantic woman named Elizabeth (played by Tilda Swinton). She constantly comes into the clinic to berate the employees and the management. Her shock of dyed red and orange hair is almost as caustic as her personality.

Allie is a little bit of a klutz. He accidentally unplugs Bobby’s freezer. He gets fired immediately. Elizabeth is there and is busy, yelling at the staff. They walk out together, and she says that he could possibly do some work for her. She wants to have a gallery showing of all of Bobby’s art work. It consists of thirteen pictures — all of eggs. These “Thirteen Eggs” will be Bobby’s legacy.

Elizabeth is rude and demeaning to everybody, be it the wait staff at a restaurant or customer support staff on the phone. Her idea is to have Allie help her gather up all thirteen paintings, and track them in a database. And the tracking must be done using ‘Filemaker Pro’. Allie does not know anything about how this works, but nobody else does either. Nobody uses that software anymore.

Many of the paintings are in storage, and Elizabeth knows where they are and how to get them back. But there is at least one that is out of reach. This painting now belongs to Dalia (played by Greta Lee). She was Bobby’s old girlfriend. Elizabeth was very cruel to her in the past and has no way to approach her. Allie is smart enough to contact Dalia and get things right with her.

Elizabeth will not pay Allie anything, not until the gallery show is complete. So he continues to find many terrible and demeaning jobs on ‘craigslist’. He gets just enough to scrape by, while he rents out a very small room in a shared apartment. Even then, he finds he needs to ‘sub-lease’ his own room for the cash. Sleeping on the couch ain’t so bad…

Most times, Allie is overdrawn on his bank account. So it’s off to more and more ‘craigslist’ jobs. Allie conjures up images of an evil Genie named ‘craigslist’ who prods Allie to more and more garbage jobs.

He imagines Elizabeth as an evil multi-headed Hydra, ready to snap at anyone who will not give her anything but perfection. Some things Allie cannot do, like drive Elizabeth up-state. So she gets a new assistant named Bingham (played by James Scully). But all he does is drive her around. But he doesn’t stick around.

While Elizabeth is away for a bit, Allie finally gets a Gallery Showing of the entire “Thirteen Eggs” — Bobby’s legacy. All this time, Allie spends some precious minutes on the phone to Dolores. He is explaining that once the Showing has taken place, Elizabeth will finally settle down and hire him for real. She can sponsor his Green Card, and he can help her until he gets his big break into the toy business.

By the way — why is Hasbro now advertising a line of Cabbage Patch dolls – but with cell phones. That was Alejandro’s idea that he brought to them – but he did not get any credit. Allie explains what happened, how his idea was stolen, to Elizabeth.

She never takes no for an answer, so you can bet she would have quite a number of things to say to that Hasbro executive. Allie does not know how to find out whom to talk to at Hasbro. Elizabeth always can find a way to know who she can yell at…

But with a successful Show featuring Bobby’s work, Elizabeth changes Allie’s plans. They will go separate ways, but now Allie has the fortitude to take on Hasbro. Elizabeth wants to spend more quality time with Bobby. The unexpected turn of events will test everybody’s ability to cope with change. Even Dolores gets a second wind to be creative.

“Problemista” is the creative brain child of Julio Torres, who has written and directed this movie. It lightly mirrors his own experiences, being an immigrant coming into the States from El Salvador. He is able to show the endless maze of bureaucracy that is the US Immigration Department.

Torres (playing Allie) has a wonderful screen presence of being a slightly off-kilter dreamer who does not know when things are going wrong for him. He has a crop of wild hair full of cowlicks, and walks with goofy shuffle. But he will never let all the obstacles block his way.

Swinton (playing Elizabeth) has a terrific knack at being the most annoying person in the room, even down to her flaming red-orange hair. Her work as being the morally superior Elizabeth is fascinating to watch. She never passes on a chance to make somebody’s life miserable.

“Problemista” is an entertaining look at the plight of a young immigrant who wants to make it big in the United States. But his determination to get past every thing that stands in his way just causes him one more Problem (ista).