Problemista- A Funny, imaginative, and Promising Debut

Problemista is a promising debut for Julio Torres. It's a wildly imaginative social satire that pokes fun at so many aspects of modern life, from the U.S. immigration and sponsorship system to how modern banks use overdraft fees to leech money off of already financially struggling people. Much of what the film says about capitalism and the American dream isn't new. But Julio Torres makes his way of exploring these ideas stand out through incredibly bold, creative, and absurd visuals. There's a heightened quality to so much of the film, with characters that all feel like over-the-top caricatures of people who exist in the modern day, such as Tilda Swinton's Elizabeth, who plays a Karen-type character with such coked-up energy that makes each moment she's onscreen quite entertaining. 

The film does feel like a debut in some areas, particularly the pacing. The pacing can sometimes feel pretty all over the place, sometimes moving at an overly fast pace in much of the first act before meandering with a montage-heavy structure in the second act and then slowing down entirely in the third. It's in that second act, specifically, that the film began to lose me, adding in a side-plot of Alejandro doing odd jobs for cash while helping Elizabeth that, while not without some humorous moments, only served to make the pacing feel overly scattered and aimless to me. 

I also can't say I always gelled with the film's comedy style. The film's satirical, absurdist edge made the film consistently laugh-out-loud hilarious. However, the film's dryer comedic sensibilities didn't always work for me, as the dry comedic deliveries and intentionally awkward sequences I didn't find all that funny. 

Despite the film's issues, Problemista is a promising, entertaining debut for Julio Torres. Torres seems confident in his satirical, absurdist sensibilities, and though it didn't always work for me, his comedic style does feel consistently hilarious for much of the film. I'm looking forward to seeing where Torre's career goes from here, as although the film falls into the same aimless and meandering structure of many debuts I've seen, he seems to have a style uniquely his own.

Now showing in select theaters in the U.S.