Vibrant ‘Problemista’ Is a Surreal Story of Art, Friendship and the American Dream

Vibrant ‘Problemista’ Is a Surreal Story of Art, Friendship and the American Dream

By Alex McPherson

An ambitious vision bursting with magical-realist style and heart, director Julio Torres’ “Problemista” explores resonant themes of pursuing your dreams, finding unlikely friendship, and scrambling to get by in a hellscape of bureaucracy without betraying your true self.

Torres’ semi-autobiographical film, narrated by Isabella Rossellini, follows Alejandro (Torres), a sensitive soul from El Salvador, who is very close to his loving mother, Dolores (Catalina Saaverdra), who still lives there. Dolores, an architect, shielded Alejandro as a child from the outside world, creating for him an almost fairy-tale fortress in their backyard.

When Alejandro immigrates to New York City with hopes of becoming a toy designer at Hasbro, Dolores is supportive yet worried, frequently checking in and finding it difficult to continue her work.

Soft-spoken, sporting a prominent cowlick and an odd, childlike gait, grown-up Alejandro stubbornly, and admirably, refuses to give up on his “true calling” in the Big Apple. His ideas include twists on classic toys to teach kids what he deems as practical lessons (a slinky that doesn’t fall down the stairs, or Untrustworthy Barbie with fingers crossed behind her back). He remains frustratingly held back by the all-too-familiar “noreply” email rejections on his applications to Hasbro. 

Struggling to pay rent and with the expiration of his work visa looming, Alejandro begins working at a cryogenic center called Freeze Corp, where people store themselves hoping to be revived many years later when there’s a cure for whatever is currently plaguing them.

Alejandro looks after the body of painter Bobby (RZA), husband of frazzled art critic outcast Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton). Bobby has made a career of painting unsellable portraits of eggs, weirdly enough, and has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, which he hopes can be cured in the future once he thaws and wakes up.

An accidental unplugging of Bobby’s “pod” leads to Alejandro being fired from the company and left without visa sponsorship, which spells his imminent deportation (visualized as an hourglass gradually running out of sand). Desperate to stay in America, Alejandro encounters the malcontent Elizabeth at Freeze Corp; she’s complaining about increases in pricing, and he soon after becomes her personal assistant. 

Putting on a brave face and enduring Elizabeth’s hilariously erratic mood swings and endless tirades against contemporary society, Alejandro is tasked with  curating a gallery show of Bobby’s egg paintings — the promise of visa sponsorship at the finish line.

Alejandro’s life in America depends on him getting the signature before time runs out, and jumping through all the baffling, dehumanizing hoops required to get there. He must also pretend to understand FileMaker Pro (“the Cadillac of spreadsheets,” according to Elizabeth), in order to satisfy her desire to catalog all of Bobby’s paintings and sell them to pay the fees at Freeze Corp. 

With a satirical approach that oscillates between being laugh-out-loud funny, suspenseful, heartbreaking, and life-affirming, “Problemista” expertly explores the challenges of surviving as an outsider in a world seemingly designed to hold you back. Not every idea Torres presents lands equally effectively, but “Problemista” soars.

Much of the film’s success comes from its mastery of tone that never loses sight of what’s ultimately at stake for Alejandro. For all the humor that comes from Torres’ wry screenplay, empathetic characters, and heightened style, the threat of deportation looms, and the film never lets us forget that his livelihood hangs by a thread.

The film’s surrealist flourishes – like visualizing Craigslist as a physical entity (Larry Owens) floating in the ether wrapped in junk, work visa requirements as a never-ending series of escape rooms stacked on top of each other, people literally disappearing in Alejandro’s immigration office, and certain high-stake arguments as battles between an armored Alejandro and monsters in a cave (one of which is a showdown with a Bank of America employee about overdraft fees) – always serve to illustrate graver realities despite their out-there depiction.

While often heavy-handed, Torres’ approach is inventive and surprising from start to finish, choosing to remain grounded in immediate reality during particularly queasy moments. Combined with excellent production design, editing, memorable cameos from Greta Lee, Laith Nakli, and James Scully, plus a sprightly, chorus-infused score by Robert Ouyang Rusli, “Problemista” is simultaneously funny and disturbing as Alejandro navigates this colorful nightmare. 

The film’s outward lightness is deceiving, belying an anger at America’s treatment of immigrants and outsiders struggling to find meaning in their lives who might not even get the chance to try in the first place. Still, “Problemista” maintains a sense of optimism and hopefulness that persists through the bleak circumstances.

The world can’t quash Alejandro’s, or Torres’, spirit, no matter how hard it tries. “Problemista” ultimately conveys a faith in humanity while condemning the archaic systems in which we operate.  

Torres presents Alejandro as someone with big goals and quiet perseverance. His reticence to stand up for himself stems from both his innocence and knowledge that his privileges can all be lost in an instant if he steps out of line. Torres’ peculiar body language and dryly funny line delivery makes Alejandro instantly endearing, amusing, and sympathetic.

Alejandro’s timid resolve ultimately comes across as an act of resistance against the larger systems that try to kill his aspirations, as he both endures and learns from his temperamental boss.

Speaking of, Swinton absolutely crushes the role, bringing fiery, live-wire energy to her art critic outcast nicknamed “The Hydra.” Combative, entitled, passionate, and grieving her cryogenically-frozen husband, Elizabeth feels left behind by the modern world, struggling to navigate technology (any customer service representative should beware) and getting her way through sheer force of will.

“Problemista” treats Elizabeth empathetically, though, painting her as someone looking for meaning in her life and searching for peace, no matter how much chaos she causes along the way – very human in her contradictions, and a perfectly unhinged character for Swinton to play. 

Her bond with Alejandro – running the gamut of emotions as she gradually sees him as a three-dimensional human being – is believable and rarely, if ever, overly sentimental. Torres’ screenplay skirts the edges of being twee without crossing the line – Alejandro and Elizabeth are lost souls finding kinship, and while their circumstances are vastly different on first glance, they share more in common than either of them thought possible.

Indeed, Swinton’s portrayal helps sell some of the film’s thornier takeaways: that of Elizabeth’s idea of finding success by creating “problems” and essentially harnessing your inner Karen. There’s something to be said for that, sure, but with some convenient, crowd-pleasing plot developments later on, it feels like Torres adding an easy platitude to a situation that’s far from black-and-white.

More poignant is the way Torres has repackaged his life experience into Alejandro’s story: creating his own art through past hardship and paying tribute to family and friends who helped him get to where he is today.

“Problemista,” then, remains an impressive achievement, especially for a first feature film. As an ode to outsiders, art, and friendship, there’s really nothing quite like it.

This image released by A24 Films shows Julio Torres, left, and Tilda Swinton in a scene from “Problemista.” (Jon Pack/A24 via AP)

“Problemista” is a 2023 comedy-drama written and directed by Julio Torres and starring Tilda Swinton, RZA, James Scully, Greta Lee, Catalina Saaverdra, and Isabella Rossellini. It is rated R for some language and sexual content, and runtime is 1 hour, 44 minutes. It opened in theaters March 22. Alex’s Grade: B+.

‘Past Lives’ Is a Beautifully Moving Love Story

‘Past Lives’ Is a Beautifully Moving Love Story

By Alex McPherson

A dramatically rich, sensitively told love story with an astounding trio of central performances, director Celine Song’s “Past Lives” is a near-flawless achievement — a small-scale film that packs an emotional wallop in its exploration of universal themes.

Song’s film begins with a slow zoom on three characters sitting at a bar, Nora (Greta Lee), Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), and Arthur (John Magaro), as a person from across the room speculates on their connections to each other. We jump back in time to when Nora (Moon Seung-ah), then going by Na Young, and Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min) were 12-year-old best friends living in Seoul, South Korea. They’re competitive, affectionate, and seemingly inseparable, until Na Young’s parents decide to immigrate to Canada, rendering Hae Sung confused and heartbroken as his companion leaves him behind.

Flash forward 12 years later, and Na Young (Lee), having changed her name to Nora, now lives in Toronto as an aspiring playwright, brimming with kindness and joie de vivre that lights up any room she’s in. Hae Sung (Yoo) — who finished his mandatory military service and is in engineering school — never forgot about her, and does some Facebook sleuthing to get in contact. Once he and Nora start chatting on Skype, their bond is rekindled, if only briefly, as Nora eventually decides they should stop talking because of the literal and figurative distance between them.

Twelve years down the road from that, Nora lives in New York City with her non-Korean husband Arthur (John Magaro), a fellow writer she met on a writer’s retreat. Hae Sung, having experienced personal and professional disappointments and still thinking about Nora, decides to visit her in NYC, setting the stage for a heartfelt reunion with plenty of discomfort for the concerned-yet-level-headed Arthur to contend with.

Nora and Hae Sung spend time together, having deceptively low-key conversations as they visit famous landmarks, each reflecting on past what-ifs and how their bond continues today, grappling with the sacrifices they’ve made personally and culturally along life’s winding path.

With a delicate, understated approach that never talks down to viewers nor mines the material to over-the-top ends, “Past Lives” transcends this familiar love-triangle setup to speak to truths both personal and all-inclusive. Song, in her feature film debut, takes a tenderly elegiac approach to this semi-autobiographical narrative that allows the ensemble — Lee, especially — to stretch their wings, and treats its relatably flawed characters with respect as they navigate situations with no easy answers.

John Magaro, Greta Lee

The film’s finely calibrated elegance is largely the result of Lee, Yoo, and Magaro working at the absolute peak of their craft. Lee, in particular, lends a subtly raw emotional power to Nora’s inner conflicts; content in her new life and unmoored by the arrival of her childhood sweetheart, who represents not only a possible romantic interest but one of her primary connections to her former life in Korea.

Lee communicates multitudes through glances, pauses, and body language, sometimes veering from happiness to sober realization in the span of a few seconds — conveying Nora’s tangled emotions in a manner far more engaging than traditional dialogue ever could. We see her confidence, warmth, and friendliness, along with her aching for a relationship and cultural identity she’s had to sideline to pursue her ambitions.

Thanks to Lee’s talent as a performer, we can follow Nora’s emotions based primarily on her mannerisms and facial expressions — Lee gives one of the single best performances of the year so far. It’s easy to understand why so many characters in the film gravitate towards her; Lee exudes an authenticity that’s a perfect fit, as we gradually see Nora becoming more vulnerable and honest with herself and those close to her, releasing her turbulent emotions in an organic way without resorting to melodrama. 

Yoo is incredible, lending real pathos to Hae Sung’s heartache and yearning, especially in scenes of him interacting with Nora face-to-face, exchanging brief smiles and pangs of regret that illuminate the push-pull between his heart and reality. Magaro, as always, plays Arthur with a gentleness and sly humor that makes him easy to empathize with; there are no villains in “Past Lives,” and Arthur’s just another human being caught in an odd circumstance.

The screenplay, by Song, finds humor and earnestness without launching into schmaltz or over-explanation. Much of the drama is based in the Buddhist-derived concept of inyun, which involves the idea of interactions signaling relationships in past lives and of destiny, which Hae Sung follows, perhaps misguidedly, in his continued longing for Nora.

While it’s true that Nora and Hae Sung spell out this concept more than once, “Past Lives” doesn’t overdo it, using it as a way for the characters to discuss the past, present, and future while coming to grips with the decisions they’ve made. Indeed, “Past Lives” is ultimately a poetic meditation on Nora and Hae Sung’s bittersweet acceptance of the present, something we can all relate to as we look back at choices made and opportunities missed in our own lives.

From a directing standpoint, “Past Lives” also excels. Song displays an incredible attention to detail — weaving together a tapestry of yearning, uncertainty, joy, and sorrow that spans decades without becoming unwieldy. The film’s slower pacing lets scenes breathe and provides ample time to establish the emotional backbone of Nora and Hae Sung’s bond, from playing in the park, to battling unstable Skype connections, to meeting in-person at last in adulthood, with all the awkwardness that ensues.

Song finds visual parallels and motifs across the story’s decades-long scope, including one particularly powerful image of Nora and Hae Sung as children on separate ends of a staircase breaking off in two directions. Song knows when to quietly pull the rug out from under us, flashing those memories back, both for viewers and the characters in pivotal sequences. Shabier Kirchner’s lived-in cinematography helps ground the story even more, as well as finding occasional wry comedy, like one particularly uncomfortable albeit meaningful restaurant visit with Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur all together.

Through Song’s direction and Kirchner’s lens, highlighting the minutiae of the characters’ expressions just as much as their surroundings, we see the joy, beauty, loneliness, and melancholia at play for Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur. The last shot, too, a long-take that’s deeply poignant and cathartic, continues to linger in my mind.

By the end, there’s not a single issue in “Past Lives” that stands out. Song’s debut is astounding, making the most of the film medium to tell a story that everyone can connect to and maybe fall in love with.

“Past Lives” is a 2023 romantic drama written and directed by Celine Song, in both English and Korean, starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro. It is rated PG-13 for some strong language and runtime is 1 hour, 45 minutes. It opened in theaters June 23. Alex’s Grade: A+