The screen opens with a shot of a young Alejandro Martinez (Julio Torres) and his mother, Dolores (Catalina Saavedra), as both walk through the Salvadoran wilderness, the pillars of a maximalist house rising to represent a mother’s desire to keep her son close and protected from the outside world…
Cut to modern-day as an older Alejandro is braving the chaos of New York City. A Salvadoran immigrant and aspiring toymaker on a work visa, Alejandro is fired from his job at a cryogenics facility for accidentally pulling the plug on his assigned frozen patient — an egg painter named Bobby (RZA).
Upon losing his job, Alejandro meets the artistically frustrated and Karen-like Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), wife to the frozen Bobby, who promised to exhibit Bobby’s egg-painting collection before he was cryogenically frozen in the hopes that science would eventually be able to wake him. Here, Elizabeth meets Alejandro and offers to sponsor him if he helps her exhibit these eclectic egg paintings.
So begins Ale’s (as he is affectionately called by Dolores) ordeal in “Problemista” as he has to put up with Elizabeth’s erratic and borderline unhinged behavior to keep his work visa and avoid deportation.
With a brief cameo from Greta Lee (as Dalia) and the sporadic appearances of the Craigslist god (Larry Owens), Julio Torre’s experience as an SNL writer is visible as “Problemista” often borders on the absurd with multiple sketch-like scenes used to convey Alejandro’s struggle to stay in the United States.
Through its absurdity, “Problemista” is a critique on the messed-up power dynamics between those in power and those who will go to great lengths to make ends meet and retain their social status. But most of all, this movie examines society’s aloofness to the chicken-or-egg type situation that the immigration system puts many people into: Alejandro needs a work visa to make money to pay for his immigration attorney’s fees, but he also can’t pay for such fees without a job first.
In this debut movie, Julio Torres manages to intertwine struggle with heartwarming satire in a little over 90 minutes. This movie will leave you endeared to both Ale and Elizabeth’s relationship as both attempt to navigate the respective journeys they have set out to complete for themselves and for those they made promises to.
While brief, the reference to pupusas and the WhatsApp messaging between Ale and his nurturing yet ever-worried Salvadoran mom struck a childhood cord. Although I felt that “Problemista” had a slow exposition and was more absurd than I thought it would be, seeing Latino and Salvadoran representation in a movie was comforting and validating to my experiences as a Salvadoran immigrant.
Finally, Elizabeth, although embittered and unhinged, offers the movie’s titular meaning (literally) to all those trying to fulfill a dream or seek better opportunities in a hilarious and heartwarming monologue: you cannot win against entities. If you want to achieve something, find someone specific and make yourself their problem. In other words, become a problemista.
