Bargatze’s ‘Breadwinner’ Should Be Funnier

Comedian Nate Bargatze’s film debut, The Breadwinner, could have made a bold statement to Hollywood that PG comedies for the whole family are back. But sadly, the critically panned film was a box-office dud (fifth place in its opening weekend), entirely overshadowed by buzz around two horror films directed by Gen-Z YouTubers. For Christian moviegoers, it feels both disappointing and like a missed opportunity.

Sure, there’s much to commend about The Breadwinner. It’s a deeply profamily, promarriage movie starring Bargatze (a Christian who grew up Southern Baptist) and Mandy Moore as a couple raising three girls in Tennessee. At a time when marriage and family need more unapologetic champions in pop culture, The Breadwinner takes a refreshing stand for both.

The PG movie is also “safe for the whole family” in a way few films are anymore. In a movie landscape riddled with horror movies and recycled IP films, an original family comedy like this—which adults and kids can watch together without fear—serves an underserved market.

Yet “safe for the whole family” and “actually funny comedy” is a rare and tricky combination in a Hollywood landscape where “the adult comedies have become very adult, and children’s comedies have become very childish.” Few films attempt the middle ground, and The Breadwinner, directed by Eric Appel, doesn’t quite pull it off. A movie starring Bargatze (who makes clean comedy very funny in his stand-up or sketch-based comedy) should be funny. So why isn’t The Breadwinner the laugh-out-loud enjoyment it had the potential to be?

Tired Tropes

It’s not that The Breadwinner is unfunny. It has its moments. Some of the supporting characters made me laugh (I particularly liked Colin Jost), and Bargatze has a few zingers. The “bumbling dad” physical comedy might appeal to kids.

The overall experience of watching the movie, however, was somewhat boring. Mostly this has to do with a plot that feels old-fashioned (and overdone) and an exhausting character trope (the bozo dad) that should have been retired decades ago.

The plot is simple: A suburban couple’s roles are reversed when a stay-at-home mom’s side craft goes viral, lands her on Shark Tank, and leads to her meteoric professional success. With the wife and mom of three (Moore) suddenly in demand at global trade shows and product launches, the husband and dad (Bargatze) must quit his car-salesman job to stay at home and manage the day-to-day business of raising three girls.

This premise is supposed to lead to all manner of laughs because of a “fish out of water” conceit: Dad, who knows nothing of Mom’s domestic duties, is suddenly forced to cook, clean, and stay on top of the family’s complicated school and activity schedules. But he bungles it all and nearly destroys the house, Clark Griswold style. It’s basically the same setup as Mr. Mom (1983), Three Men and a Baby (1987), or Mrs. Doubtfire (1993): The lulz of watching incompetent men thrust into the domestic roles and responsibilities more traditionally the domain of wives and mothers.

That concept may have felt funny and fresh 40 years ago, but today it feels retread and out of touch. Modern families may still tilt toward neotraditional roles, preferring the man to be the breadwinner. But it’s also more common than ever for dads to contribute to household chores and be proficient in cooking meals, washing dishes, and doing loads of laundry without turning everything blue. And American fathers are more involved than ever in their children’s lives. “Dad duty” in the home is no longer a “fish out of water” recipe for comedy. It’s everyday life for more and more families—as shows like Bluey casually reflect.

‘Dad duty’ in the home is no longer a fish-out-of-water recipe for comedy. It’s just everyday life for more and more families.

As a dad who has, on many occasions, had to hold down the fort with multiple children at home while my wife traveled for her job, I can relate to some of the mishaps that befall Bargatze in The Breadwinner. Certainly, there are comedic foibles that come when dads try to fill in for moms for extended periods of time. Moms are irreplaceable.

But I also know from experience that taking on these domestic tasks is neither impossible nor as hard for men as The Breadwinner makes it seem. The situational comedy of this movie isn’t particularly plausible, from my vantage point.

Challenge of Compelling, Creative, and Clean Comedy

Bargatze—who cowrote the script and coproduced the film—deserves credit for at least attempting the rare trick of a family-affirming, clean comedy. He’s a refreshing figure in the world of comedy, and I’m glad his comedy specials and tours are so successful. Clearly, there’s a market for comedy that doesn’t rely on shock, raunch, and constant profanity. As Bargatze said in a recent interview with Theo Von, it can actually be good for comedians to have “boundaries” put around them regarding language and explicit content, “because then it makes you come at stuff in different angles.”

The problem with The Breadwinner is that it doesn’t feel like an especially “different angle” but more like repackaged tropes about bumbling dads and swapped gender roles.

It’s too bad. I hope the film’s underperformance at the box office doesn’t close the door for future attempts in this live-action, PG family-film genre. I believe Bargatze—among others—is capable of creating “clean” entertainment that feels more original and intelligent. The box-office success of Kevin James’s Solo Mio earlier this year (though more a rom-com than a family-com) shows the viability of these sorts of movies. Popular franchises like Paddington also prove it’s possible to be wholesome without sacrificing creative excellence and entertainment value.

Here’s my challenge for filmmakers of faith (or friendly to faith): Remember that transgressive is easy; “edgy” is overdone. It takes true creativity to make wholesome, values-rich entertainment that doesn’t feel preachy, cheap, or retrograde. The new radicals are the artists who make ancient virtue look newly compelling. “Clean” doesn’t need to mean “boring.”

Even if The Breadwinner doesn’t quite capture what we need, it’s at least an attempt in the right direction. Here’s hoping it inspires other artists to make their own attempts—but to do it better.