They say opposites attract. Writer/Director Julio Torres does just that starring and sparring with Tilda Swinton in a sweet, funny off-kilter comedy. It’s a head scratcher at first, but heartfelt by the end. But how they play off each other is something to watch. Torres gives these characters bursts of sharp, fast dialogue to have fun with.
In this, the first feature from the former SNL writer, he juxtaposes himself as a Alejandro, a soft-spoken immigrant from El Salvador, with Elizabeth, a snooty, deep magenta with a “tunnel” of hair, art world wannabe. Swinton directs fiery outrage at anyone who crosses her path. Same if they do anything bad about her man. Torres cast Isabella Rossellini as the voice of the narrator with a few ounces of attitude herself.
This weird tale follows Alè’s major dilemma. He just lost his job at FreezeCorp, a cryogenics company who was sponsoring his immigration status. Unless he gets a new job who sponsors him, he’ll be deported. Alejandro’s big dream is to invent and design off-the-wall imaginative toys for Hasbro. He’s needy in a different way than Elizabeth,
getting support from his mother in El Salvador who constantly offers him advice.
The scenes in the Immigration Office are revelatory of the plight of those without jobs. Torres shows him watching people just like him lose their appeals one after another and vanish into thin air. a very effective way of showing the fears of the immigrant so current in the news. Torres takes it all in, outwardly showing little emotion. Scared, he ambles around town looking for work in odd places. That’s when he comes across a woman who could become his new sponsor, Elizabeth (Swinton) in a role that lets her let loose.
Elizabeth was married to an artist, Bobby (RZA) whose life’s work was a series on oil paintings of eggs which no one wanted to buy. Diagnosed with a terminal disease he chose cryogenic freezing in the hopes that his work will be better received when he’s revived in the future. As Alè is leaving the cryogenic facility after being laid off, he encounters Elizabeth who enlists him to carry Bobby’s art works back to her apartment.
Swinton describes her character’s eccentric fashion statement as a tunnel of wild frizzy deep magenta hair to go along with her masterfully artistic off-beat wardrobe. She’s in a state of perpetual rage. Whether dealing with a waiter or constantly on the phone with Tech Support, Elizabeth loudly lashes out at everyone and everything. Swinton is one huge train wreck here.
Thus, starts the peculiar relationship where Ale is hired for no pay to help mount a show of husband-on-ice Bobby’s collection of works. But first Alè has to help get a missing painting back from Bobby’s former lover (Greta Lee) and swear he knows and will use the so complicated database organizer, FileMaker Pro, nobody can figure it out.
Frustrations abound driving them both right off the rails. The more he stays restrained trying to keep his prospective sponsor happy, the more she explodes, truly exposing the immigrant conundrum.
Torres makes Alejandro a funny, bright, sweetly curious off-beat character. His slow shuffling walk, mouth open, and blank look with disheveled hair is misleading. There’s always something going on upstairs.
There’s a growing connection as they and the crazy lady come to understand each other. And there’s respect, even though needy Elizabeth would never admit it. She’s only concerned with her own needs. But Director Torres has Alejandro start to act like her, asserting himself as when she yells, “Get a name and become a problem for them!” That’s when he learns how to be more like brash New Yorker she is.
Mystified and enamored by her as the answer to his immigration predicament, he is also learning how to raise a ruckus, like her, to get what he wants. Swinton mesmerizes and Torres stakes his claim as a Writer/Director and Actor in this original comedy that raises a lot of issues without hitting you over the head.
A24 1 Hour 38 Minutes R
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