If you are familiar with Nate Bargatze’s suburban dad humor, this will be the movie for you. Bargatze takes moments from his many stand-up specials to tell a story of what happens when a working dad and a stay-at-home mom switch places. The film is filled with all the usual tropes you expect in a movie where men suddenly have to assume the roles and duties of their wives that they’ve never considered before. On one hand, this brand of comedy still has some cultural relevance, but it’s running extremely thin.
Top car salesman Nate Wilcox (Bargatze) is a dedicated employee, doting husband and loving father to three girls. He is the standard representation of the once heralded “traditional family” where the father brings home the bacon and the mom takes care of the house. He also occasionally will take out the trash, albeit not at the right time or even the right day, but still, this structure worked for the Wilcox family until his wife, Katie (Mandy Moore) being the crafty homemaker she is, designs a product for busy moms and their kids as a way to keep them on task.
This thrusts her into the spotlight where she ends up on an episode of Shark Tank (which yes, unfortunately means there is another Kevin O’Leary jump scare) and her product is picked up by Lori Grenier with the exception that Nate takes care of the kids and the house while Katie is gone. And thus, hilarity ensues.
The joke being made here is that men are not cut out for domestic life, and Nate makes absolutely no attempt to succeed. Suddenly inundated with the unspeakable horror of driving his kids to school, picking them up, attending school events, cooking dinner, and the most terrifying task of all – doing laundry, we’re meant to laugh at his ineptitude but also cheer for his resourcefulness in other areas which make up for his lack of domestic instincts.
When Katie’s work gets extended, Nate devises a plan to have his daughters help with the chores so he can return to work. His job at the car dealership does offer the better comedic moments thanks to a somehow even more muscular Kumail Nanjiani and Nate’s straight faced boss Dan played hilariously by Zach Cherry. In fact, much of the secondary characters offer the strongest comedic elements such as Katie’s cousin and terrible roofer, Keegan (Will Forte) and a random delivery driver, Peter (Martin Herlihy) who makes his way into a lot of the plans towards the end, and Nate’s youngest daughter Sam (Charlotte Ann Tucker) who can’t stop hugging and kissing her classmates. Each of these characters adds a sense of audacity to the proceedings which will manage at least a chuckle or two out of the audience.
Still, the fault of the film lies in its execution. The trope of men taking on what were once perceived to be “womanly” duties and being hapless idiots about it is a dated concept, as this familial structure no longer exists in the quantities it used to and doesn’t make sense in a world where both adults have had to work and maintain a home life for decades now. The Breadwinner likely would’ve been a smash hit in an earlier time period. Now, it comes off as tone deaf and detached from the advancements of the past 50 years or so. And the humor here, while somewhat entertaining, isn’t strong enough to mask the misgivings of the concept. Nate Bargatze is a pretty good comedian. His stand-ups still hold up and while making a movie based on one of your bits isn’t always a bad idea, there’s a reason it’s a bit of a special, and not the entire thing.
The Breadwinner likely would’ve been a smash hit in an earlier time period. Now, it comes off as tone deaf and detached from the advancements of the past 50 years or so.
Phoenix is a father of two, the co-host and editor of the Curtain to Curtain Podcast, co-founder of the International Film Society Critics Association. He’s also a member of the Pandora International Critics, Independent Critics of America, Online Film and Television Association, and Film Independent. With the goal of eventually becoming a filmmaker himself. He’s also obsessed with musical theater.
