“The Breadwinner” follows Nate, a lifelong salesman father who must learn how to keep the house from falling apart after his wife’s household invention lands on Shark Tank and takes her on a prolonged business trip.
While “The Breadwinner” has early potential to be funny, it constantly squanders it by treating Nate as if he has never experienced a day of living. He can’t cook eggs. He doesn’t know the laundry detergent. He can’t even put spaghetti noodles in the cupboard. If he wasn’t so pathetic, maybe he’d be a character worth rooting for. Through all of the shenanigans, however, the audience is practically told that he’s been an absentee parent. He lacks basic knowledge of his children, daily schedules and more. Because of how unrealistic (hopefully, at least) this is, it’s hard to take anything seriously.
What “The Breadwinner” is missing is an emotional heart. A comparable narrative comes from 2021’s “Fatherhood.” There, Kevin Hart’s character loses his wife and is left with their daughter just a day after her birth. Unprepared to parent alone, he understands his faults and accepts blame. Here, Nate also knows his shortcomings, but simply continues being a terrible father — laughing through all of the missteps he takes. So much so that it ends up feeling like gross incompetence.
While the film expects laughter to arise from the hijinks, my theater largely remained silent.
There are brief instances where it does attempt to be serious. These sequences could have provided levity, but they don’t. More often than not, they end up feeling like outliers. With the tone often veering into complete comedy, any dramatic intrusions come across as forced rather than authentic.
Not only does this generate tonal inconsistencies, but also pacing issues. Dan Lagana and Nate Bargatze’s script is all over the place. One second, Nate is entirely clueless. The next, he is running his home like a car dealership. There’s no coherence to the character, meaning there’s none in the story itself either. As it shifts between dozens of absurd scenarios, the 99-minute runtime lulls.
“The Breadwinner” also presents an endless string of brand placements. First, it’s Toyota. Then KFC. Then Walmart. Then the Apple Watch. Then Sour Patch Kids. Then the Tennessee Titans. And of course… Shark Tank. They never really stop. And when the movie constantly pauses to show off these brands, it is yet another artificial aspect.
After all the “bad,” “The Breadwinner” does have some good to offer. Parenting isn’t easy, and the film hammers this message home.
The performances are also serviceable. Alongside co-writing and directing, Bargatze stars. His delivery is typically one-note, with little emotion actually ringing from his words. But for this specific movie, it works. Also appearing are Mandy Moore (Katie), Kumail Nanjiani (Peyton), Colin Jost (Conor), Will Forte (Keegan), Martin Herlihy (Peter), Zach Cherry (Dan) and Kate Berlant (Angela). Yeah… that’s a lot of noteworthy names.
Most of these actors come and go, but Nanjiani, Forte and Herlihy deliver consistent chuckles. Not many jokes within “The Breadwinner” earn full-blown laughs; these three actors have enough gravitas to at least earn smirks.
The three children (Stella Grace Fitzgerald as Gracie, Birdie Borria as Hadley and Charlotte Ann Tucker as Sam) are also bright spots. If anything can be called the “heart” of “The Breadwinner,” it’s them.
It’s a lighthearted family drama that many will be able to get behind. But, personally, I can’t help but feel like it’s outdated. This is a film that should have come out 40 years ago. It’s 2026 now. The “clueless dad learns how to take care of his family” schtick has passed.
“The Breadwinner” presents a painfully dated trope in an unfunny format — laughable in all the wrong ways.
Rating: 1 out of 5
