The Breadwinner, 2026.
Directed by Eric Appel.
Starring Nate Bargatze, Mandy Moore, Stella Grace Fitzgerald, Birdie Borria, Charlotte Ann Tucker, Colin Jost, Zach Cherry, Martin Herlihy, Kate Berlant, Kumail Nanjiani, Will Forte, Charity Cervantes, Calista Craig, Brett Cullen, Bria Brimmer, Danielle Gross, Jasmine Washington, Charlene Amoia, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, Daniel Lubetzky, and Kevin O’Leary.
SYNOPSIS:
A supermom lands a Shark Tank deal, switching roles with her breadwinner husband. He struggles to adapt as a stay-at-home dad to their three daughters.
Coming from director Eric Appel and comedian/co-writer/star Nate Bargatze, The Breadwinner plays like everyone involved suddenly discovered that gender norms and roles can be swapped, stupefyingly believing that they are onto something groundbreaking. Dated doesn’t even begin to describe it, and despite taking place in the present day, nothing about the film’s society suggests that it does. It’s as if the characters are living in a world where not a single feminist movement happened, and the idea of a stay-at-home dad is unheard of.
Now, there is a joke in here to make about the film’s Tennessee setting or the South at large, but I will spare the disparaging comments to focus on that, even if one does accept the premise of the film, there is also the hurdle that almost nothing here is funny, embracing lazy slapstick humor and tired tropes while painting the father as such a hapless idiot that goes far beyond credulity. The occasional scene setup shows promise for a laugh, only for screenwriters Nate Bargatze and Dan Lagana to ramp up the stupidity to such an extent that it undercuts whatever point the joke is trying to make. while untethering a situation or conversation from reality. Even a movie as goofy as this needs some grounding in its humor, given that it aspires to address relatable topics such as gender roles and work-life balance.
For the Wilcox family, which includes model car salesman employee Nate (presumably, the comedian is playing a version of himself), his crafty inventor wife Katie (Mandy Moore), who also takes on the more traditional household roles, which include cooking, cleaning, and everything that their three children need in between, the family dynamic is working the way it currently stands. However, it is soon to be thrown for a loop when a handmade star object (designed in such a way that each point is intended to remind children of a task they need to do and is to be folded away when it is completed) catch attention and Katie a spot on Shark Tank, where she is thrust into business life and a two-week travel to South Korea with the very plausible idea that this could be a hot-selling commodity.
Thankfully, this isn’t the type of film where Nate stamps his feet at the possibility of his wife becoming more successful than him or even the titular breadwinner. Following a combination of selflessly stepping away from the car dealership and being pushed aside in favor of a dopey but effective rival employee (Kumail Nanjiani, easily one of the only amusing spots here), Nate steps into his wife’s shoes and finds out how all-consuming running the family and keeping the house in acceptable living conditions is. He quips “It’s not like I’m going to blow up the house.” As an audience, we know that if it doesn’t happen, he will come close to inadvertently doing so.
If I were to list everything Nate is incompetent at, we would be here forever. What needs to be said is that the film is incapable of taking a simple joke and playing it for grounded humor. No, Nate apparently needs to be the dumbest human being alive for there to be a movie here (something that his opening narration appears to be justifying). Forget that he can’t even cook breakfast or notice that the toaster isn’t even plugged in, it takes him almost the entire damn two weeks to realize that his duties would be a lot easier if he simply brought his three daughters to Walmart and let them buy what they need, whether it’s for school, hygiene, or to snack on.
Furthermore, anything about their behavior that needs to be addressed privately is generally handled in the worst way even if he means well; he insists to one daughter (Birdie Borria) that spelling bees are stupid while while actually buying a horse for another (despite living in the suburbs) in hopes that giving that youngest child (Charlotte Ann Tucker) what she wants will deflect from him having to have a serious conversation that she can’t go around hugging and kissing all of her classmates (which is already a bizarre subplot by itself). Even the most relatable subplot for fathers, a nervous inability to accept that his 13-year-old daughter (Stella Grace Fitzgerald) is crushing on boys, is far too cookie-cutter and safe to elicit any emotion or reaction. Again, most of his solutions are simply too dumb for anyone to relate to or even find funny.
Nate’s self-growth journey doesn’t begin or end with learning to parent properly and take on his wife’s responsibilities, for he is also a jerk to other adults around him, including a fellow stay-at-home dad (Colin Jost), who is eager to hang out. That’s also something that needs to change. On top of this, he starts going back to work, which introduces a dynamic balance between work and parenting.
Will Forte also shows up as a desperate roofer happy to finally be given some work, who somehow becomes a guardian teammate and spends a lot of time at Nate’s house. The scenes between them, specifically those in which the roofer is a more suitable and responsible dad than Nate, are among the only mildly amusing bits in the entire movie, largely due to the strength of the former as a comedic presence. Speaking of that, it’s not a stretch to say that every single actor in The Breadwinner besides Nate Bargatze (even throwing Kevin O’Leary’s cameo into the mix), is marginally more entertaining and watchable. Maybe they should have been the breadwinners.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
