Julio Torres is, how do you say? Sui generis. Following his comedy special titled My Favorite Shapes and co-creating and starring in an HBO series about a Latin American group of reverse-Scooby-Doo-ers called Los Espookys, his upcoming debut film, Problemista, looks to be just as surreal and funny as … everything else he makes. He stars as Alejandro, an artist who lives in the U.S. and has one month to find a cosigner on his visa, so he attempts to get his boss, played by Tilda Swinton, to be that cosigner. The film was originally scheduled for an August 4 debut but was postponed indefinitely due to the strike. On January 18, A24 put out a promo video featuring Torres getting a call from Swinton on his shellphone and revealing to both her and us that the film will finally premiere in theaters March 1. Then, Torres gets a Grindr message and screenshots it, because his priorities are in check.
While the first trailer for the film leaned heavily on the surreal, the second (above) gives us a comparatively grounded look at the movie. There’s still a literal hourglass turned over to symbolize the amount of time Alejandro has before he gets kicked out of the country (we said “comparativelyâ€). We also get a look at how desperate for cash Alejandro is (-$407.43 in his bank account) and how little his boss knows about El Salvador (pupusas and nuns). Other than Torres and Swinton, the A24 film stars RZA, Greta Lee, Larry Owens, Catalina Saavedra, and Isabella Rossellini as the narrator. While we’re disappointed the movie isn’t already out as was originally planned, there is something to the smell of surrealism in the spring.
This post has been updated.