The popular standup comedian Nate Bargatze uses his appealingly deadpan demeanor to convey relatable, family-friendly jokes about his own middle-class doofiness. Funny as he can be, his affect doesn’t seem ideal for performing with others. Back in the 90s, an American sitcom would have been built around him anyway; today, the form isn’t quite so ubiquitous, and sold-out standup tickets have remained his bread and butter. Yet Bargatze has done surprisingly well as a two-time Saturday Night Live host, especially for more writerly pieces that other celebrities might not so perfectly underplay.
For his film debut The Breadwinner, Bargatze takes cues from an earlier SNL player – specifically and unfortunately, the suburban dregs of Adam Sandler’s late-2000s/early-2010s middle period. As in vaguely sour-spirited Sandler vehicles like Grown Ups or Jack & Jill, Bargatze co-writes a movie for himself where he plays a suburban dad married to a woman who seems way out of his league – in this case, Katie (Mandy Moore, occupying territory held by previous Sandman love interests Katie Holmes, Salma Hayek and Jessica Biel). And just like in those films, the movie tries to make up the deficit by assuring us the husband figure is beloved and successful, in a field that happens to allow for maximum product placement (here for Toyota, who employs Bargatze’s character as a top salesman). Following the spirit of the aforementioned 90s sitcoms, Bargatze’s character is also named Nate.
Even those bad Sandler movies, though, seemed to understand the basics of shared parenting responsibilities. Here, Reagan-era complications arrive when Katie, long a stay-at-home mom managing the couple’s three daughters (Stella Grace Fitzgerald, Birdie Borria and Charlotte Ann Tucker), has the opportunity to mass-produce her home-organization invention. (This comes courtesy of Shark Tank, cruelly forcing non-viewers of that reality show to nonetheless gaze upon the horror of its panelists’ waxy attempts at acting.) Katie leaves the country for a few weeks to attend to her burgeoning business, while Nate puts his car-salesman job on pause to run the household. This forces him to reckon with a volume of invisible-to-him labor that threatens to tear the family house down – even before he accidentally hires Keegan (Will Forte), the world’s least qualified roofer, to feel his way through a series of major repairs.
Forte is one of several SNL players who appear in supporting roles, yet another cue from the Sandler oeuvre. Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost has an ill-defined part as a fellow stay-at-home dad, and the movie even casts Martin Herlihy, son of Sandler’s longtime co-writer Tim Herlihy, as a goofball pizza delivery guy. Only Forte truly acquits himself; he plays the clumsy, underqualified Keegan with his customary commitment, to the point where some of his scenes opposite Bargatze make the latter look as utterly lost as his character. (That’s further emphasized in end-credit outtakes where Forte seems to improvise freely and Bargatze fails to get much rhythm going with him.) Keegan’s frequent references to his estranged ex-wife somehow have more honest emotional weight to them than Nate’s realization that he’s been lazing his way through his fatherly duties.
The movie wants to pay tribute to the sheer amount of work moms often wind up doing, even in households that purport to feature some division of labor – a lingering reality of many otherwise-modern families. At the same time, The Breadwinner can’t help but make Nate’s concerns look ridiculously overblown, and oblivious to the family’s socioeconomic indulgences. It’s never questioned, for example, comically or otherwise, why three different kids all need to be driven to three separate schools. It’s a common occurrence, to be sure, but one that makes The Breadwinner feel as if it’s aimed at a highly specific (and unthinkingly affluent) demographic, one that wouldn’t be put off by a conflict that hinges on whether or not a rich single-income family will be able to successfully turn into a richer dual-income family.
To a degree, incompetent-dad humor is evergreen; just look at the multitude of still-funny TV episodes from 30 years ago where Homer Simpson does this shtick more inventively and lovably. (While we’re talking knockoff comedy, it’s a bit strange that a major sequence in Bargatze’s movie sanitizes fellow standup John Mulaney’s “horse in a hospital” Trump bit with a less barbed, less funny “horse in an upper-middle-class house” gag.) Competing with old Simpsons episodes, though, is deceptively tough. Director Eric Appel has worked on plenty of funny TV series, yet in place of slick professionalism, this movie feels Scotch-taped together. In a simple sleepover scene, Appel has trouble managing just how many characters are actually supposed to be in the house.
The Breadwinner isn’t completely laughless. A minor running gag about the sheer number of damp towels left in the wake of Nate’s daughters (who claim to use zero-to-one apiece) is the kind of specific yet relatable housekeeping gag that doesn’t depend purely on indifference, and there’s a funny meta scene where Nate launches into a corny standup routine in miniature, to the delight of some bake-sale moms. Mostly, though, the movie is about a put-upon middle-aged white guy extolling the virtues of Walmart as he learns musty, decades-old lessons about “work-life balance” (which I’m pretty sure the movie misdefines, like the film-makers have heard the term but never actually looked into it). Maybe starting close to Sandler’s nadir will hasten Bargatze’s exit from weirdly self-flattering big-screen sitcoms, and usher him toward later-period experiments that make better use of his unique presence. Regardless of the wisdom it tries to impart, no one here (save Forte) seems to be working very hard.
The Breadwinner is out now in cinemas in the US with dates in UK and Australia to follow
