PROBLEMISTA
★★★★
R, 118 minutes. Starts Sunday at United Westerly.
As our unofficial poet laureate Taylor Swift once shamefully confessed: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” Sometimes having big dreams can be a real problem; sometimes just existing in the world can be a problem, too. In Julio Torres’ earnest and absurdist directorial debut “Problemista,” he suggests that perhaps becoming the problem yourself is the only way to make it through the nightmarish maze that is the American dream. Torres introduces himself alongside this tricky quandary in “Problemista,” though the Emmy-nominated writer for “Saturday Night Live,” and the creator and star of the HBO series “Los Espookys,” will need no introduction for some. Torres, who wrote, directed and stars in “Problemista,” is from El Salvador, and his mother is an architect and designer who collaborated on his 2019 HBO comedy special “My Favorite Shapes.” In “Problemista,” Torres plays Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador living in New York City, whose mother, played by Catalina Saavedra, is an architect and designer. Alejandro, who dreams up strange little toys with mundane issues, is in the process of applying to a talent incubator program at Hasbro while working at another company that’s sponsoring his visa, a cryogenic preservation company called FreezeCorp. It’s at FreezeCorp that Alejandro meets the woman who will turn his life upside down and, in doing so, shapes the central philosophy of “Problemista.” Art critic Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton) is the wife of Alejandro’s frozen charge, a painter named Bobby Ascencio (RZA) who chose to freeze his body when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Elizabeth believes wholeheartedly that FreezeCorp will eventually figure out how to reanimate Bobby, and in the meantime, she’s got to get organized, and that’s where Alejandro comes in. After an unfortunate mishap, Alejandro is let go from the company, and in Elizabeth he finds a dangerously aligned spirit: they both desperately want something, and possess just enough deranged optimism to go after it.