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‘Potato’ charms with tale of gay Russian immigrant and his mom

Awakening to queerness during collapse of the Soviet Union

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Luminous Pariah and Tyler Bocock in ‘Potato Dreams of America.’ (Photo courtesy Dark Star Pictures)

January can be a difficult month for film buffs. With so many awards contenders clamoring for your time and attention, there is certainly no shortage of titles among them to choose from, so it’s not a question of slim pickings. Sometimes, though, watching one “prestige” movie after another for an entire month can feel a little bit like being a student overloaded with homework; even if you’re studying a subject you like, you still need to take a break and do something just for fun every now and then.

Fortunately, in today’s ever-hungry market for fresh streaming content there are new choices to be had even in the middle of Awards Season, and this month’s pick of the crop is exactly the kind of fun, quirky, off-the-beaten-track queer story to provide the perfect palate cleanser when you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by the heavier fare queued up on your “watch next” list – though considering that it’s the tale of a gay Russian boy and his mother who flee a life of repression and hardship in their native country by emigrating to America, you might not expect it to be.

Set in the 1980s, “Potato Dreams of America” is an autobiographical offering from writer/director Wes Hurley. The “Potato” of the title is its lead character, a Vladivostok boy obsessed with American movies who is awakening to his queerness during the collapse of the Soviet Union. His mother Lena is raising him on her own, and as a prison doctor who is daily witness to the violence and hardship of being an adult male non-conformist in Russian society, she fears for his future safety. She decides to market herself as a mail order bride, and before long she and Potato are on their way to Seattle – where they will have to learn how to navigate life in America, a whole new culture with forms of oppression all its own.

Admittedly, it’s a synopsis that reads pretty bleak – but that’s precisely why “Potato Dreams of America” turns out to be such a delight. Rather than delivering the stark immigrant drama we’ve come to expect from stories such as this one, it turns those expectations upside down by offering twist after twist (along with a wry and consistent sense of humor) that keep it from becoming a predictable tale of woe and turn it instead into something much less dreary.

To begin with, there are the two central characters, a memorable pair of plucky souls who win our attention and our sympathies with their against-the-grain attitudes and refusal to give up on their dreams. They are surrounded by an ensemble largely made up of broadly drawn eccentrics; there’s Grandmother Tamara (Lea DeLaria), a no-nonsense traditionalist who lovingly doles out toxic cultural assumptions with her grandmotherly advice; there’s also John (Dan Lauria), Lena’s rigid and seemingly conservative American husband whose fundamentalist views might just be a smokescreen for a life he has always kept hidden. Characters such as these provide a layer of satire and social commentary but remain grounded enough in the emotional arc of the story to serve as believable characters, thereby investing them with enough humanity to soften the sharpness around their edges. This is even true of Jesus – or rather, the imaginary version of Jesus (Jonathan Bennett) Potato concocts as he struggles to come of age, whose serene aloofness is somehow made completely relatable by the good-natured gay insouciance with which he is played.

Likable characters are a big part of the movie’s charm, but the infectious sensibility that wins our hearts comes straight from the filmmaker himself. In telling the story of his own life – albeit a highly stylized version of it – he gives full rein to the love for cinema, and specifically American cinema, which fueled his own young dreams of America and ultimately led him to a career behind the camera that includes two seasons of the critically acclaimed comedy series “Capitol Hill” (starring Jinkx Monsoon, Ben DeLaCreme, Waxie Moon and Robbie Turner). 

His movie is full of cinematic flourish, indulging in bold strokes to help its narrative unfold. Most striking of these is the choice, midway through the film, to swap out both the leading players for different actors – Potato and Lena in Russia are played, respectively, by Hersh Powers and Sera Barbieri, and in America by Tyler Bocock and Marya Sea Kaminski. From a practical perspective, of course, the abrupt change aids in depicting Potato’s transition into gay life in America simply by introducing a significantly older actor who can appropriately appear in the scenes when things inevitably start to get sexy; but on a deeper level, this calculated recasting invites contemplation on the relationship between our environment and our identity, highlighting the filmmaker’s seeming assertion that changing the world you live in requires you to become a different person – or perhaps, in light of the film’s opening quote (“I’ve always been America in my heart,” from queer trailblazer Quentin Crisp), that becoming the person you are meant to be requires finding a world where it is possible to do so, even if you have to build it yourself.

Still, even if Hurley’s ambitious conceits bring a kind of aspirational magic realism to his film, they never become pretentious, nor do they derail for an instant the movie’s sense of fun. In this, the filmmaker is greatly aided by his talented cast, peppered with familiar faces like DeLaria, Lauria, and Bennett (all of whom do exceptional character work while giving a sly and ironic nod to their own familiar persona), but dominated by the masterful performances from the four actors playing his two leads. Both Barbieri and Kaminski are exceptional as Lena, making her the unorthodox and empowering heroine she deserves to be; as the two incarnations of Potato, both Powers and Bocock bring powerful charisma to the role – but the younger Powers deserves special kudos for a thoroughly mature and self-aware performance worthy of an actor twice his age or older.

“Potato Dreams of America” made a big splash at last year’s SXSW, as well as at Los Angeles’ Outfest, where it won Hurley the festival’s Grand Jury award for Best Screenplay because of its “unique non-traditional portrayal of a gay immigrant’s transition to America and his relationship to his mother.” It’s this quality that makes it a must-watch experience. As Hurley says in his official director’s statement for the film: “Despite the heavy subject matter, the story of my mom and I coming to America is not only very funny but also very inspiring, with an ending that will have to be seen to be believed. I believe this story of unconditional love, human resilience and the power of hope is what the world needs right now.”

After watching his truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story and thoroughly enjoying it, we can safely assure you that he’s not wrong.

“Potato Dreams of America” opens for a limited theatrical run on Jan. 14. It releases on VOD platforms Feb. 22.

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Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells want to adopt baby in ‘I Don’t Understand You’

Film premiered at SXSW in Austin

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(Courtesy photo)

Editor’s note: Jack Morningstar attended SXSW in Austin, Texas.

“I Don’t Understand You” focuses on a couple whose romantic Italian getaway devolves into bloody chaos while they prepare to adopt their first child. 

The film, while veering into hilariously gruesome hijinks, tells the story of a gay couple who is willing to kill for a chance at fatherhood. It sheds light on the hurdles that same-sex couples often go through in the adoption process: Financial burdens, time constraints, fraud, and in this case, a rural Italian family.

The film premiered last weekend at SXSW in Austin and stars Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells along with Nunzia Schiano, Morgan Spector and Eleonora Romandini. It was written and directed by Brian Crano and David Craig, who are married. They sourced inspiration from their own adoption struggles and an Italian vacay gone wrong. 

“We were about to leave for Italy when we found out that we had matched with a birth mother and our son would be born in about six weeks,” said Crano. 

According to Craig, the trip was tense and it culminated in their car getting stuck in a ditch on their way to an anniversary dinner.

“We ended up at an old lady’s house after she rescued us in her Fiat. Her family cooked us a meal and we stayed up drinking with them until 3 a.m., not understanding a word they were saying,” he said.

Without spoiling anything, the couple in the movie go to absurd lengths to ensure that their adoption goes through. Craig explained that the theme of the movie was “what would you do for your kid.” 

“We were three years into our own journey at the time and realized we would literally do anything to make that dream a reality. It’s really a love letter to our son,” he said.

The film is hard to relegate to a single genre. 

“When conceiving the story, we saw it as different parts — romantic comedy, horror movie, murder play — but I think by bringing in Nick and Andrew that blend actually became much more of an organic mix where the comedy sustained throughout. They elevated it in a more elegant fashion,” said Craig. 

“I Don’t Understand You”was produced by Pinky Promise, a women-led production company with the mission to elevate diverse voices in their storytelling. Kara Durrett, Pinky Promise’s current president was a champion of this script from the beginning. Founder Jessamine Burgum recounts that when Durrett was onboarding, she said “If you don’t get [“I Don’t Understand You”] I don’t know if this is going to work.” 

It ultimately became one of the first projects Burgum and Durrett collaborated on. 

Kroll and Rannells’ chemistry carried the film. 

“There was a desire to work with each of them because they had both separately been in such amazing comedian teams — like Andrew with Josh Gad and Nick with John Mulaney. Nick and Andrew’s characters are in almost every scene of the movie together, so they needed to be adept to basically doing a shared performance. There was no one more well-positioned to do this as naturally as possible,” said Crano. 

Their characters are easy to root for, yet also deeply flawed. 

“A big thing we wanted to do with this movie, and with all of our work in telling stories, is avoid telling a cliched gay trauma film. We’ve never ascribed to the idea that there is a subcategory to film that is LGBTQ, rather — movies are for everyone. We want to make a movie where gay characters are flawed, not for being gay, but because of who they are. They can be villains, but they are our protagonists,” said Craig. 

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Previewing queer movie and TV highlights for spring

New options coming despite recent Hollywood strikes

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Andrew Scott stars in ‘Ripley’ on Netflix. (Image courtesy of Netflix)

The Hollywood awards season has come to an end at last, which means we can finally look forward to some fresh new movies hitting screens over the next few weeks. And although the actors’ strike of 2023 has led to inevitable delays in bringing new content to our televisions for the spring, there are a few titles to watch for there, as well.

Girls 5Eva: Season 3 (March 14, Netflix)

The under-the-radar cult hit musical comedy series from Peacock, following a Y2K-era girl group that reunites to take advantage of a wave of millennial nostalgia, returns for a third season after being resurrected by Netflix. Lauded for its sharp and funny skewering of pop culture and the music industry and cut from the same zany, absurd cloth as “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (much of its creative team are veterans of that hit show), it’s the kind of giddy-but-smart, rapid-fire comedy that begs to be binged. Starring Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Paula Pell as a divorced lesbian dentist, fans will surely be logging on to watch as soon as it drops, but new viewers are encouraged to jump on board for this one, too. 

Love Lies Bleeding (March 15, theaters)

Rumbling into theaters after an auspicious premiere at this year’s Sundance Festival, this pulpy 1980s-set lesbian-themed thriller from director Rose Glass (“Saint Maud”) is touted as “an electric new love story” and promises to take viewers on a wild ride with its story of a reclusive gym manager (Kristen Stewart) from a criminal family who falls in love with an aspiring bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian) on her way to Las Vegas to follow her dreams; unfortunately, their romance sparks unexpected violence, dragging the new lovers deep into a dangerous web of crime and intrigue. Though it was given limited release in New York and Los Angeles on March 8, it expands wide on March 15. Also starringJena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, and Dave Franco, with Ed Harris as Stewart’s crime boss father. Consider it a must-see.

Femme (March 22/29, limited theaters with national expansion to follow)

From the UK comes this taut noir-ish thriller about a prominent London drag artist (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) who, while stepping out one night after a show to buy cigarettes, is brutally attacked by a man (George MacKay) and his gang of friends. Left traumatized by the experience, he retreats into isolation – but when he recognizes his attacker in a chance meeting at a gay sauna, he begins an affair with the closeted bully, hoping to enact a plan of revenge. Co-writer/directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping developed the film as an expansion of their award-winning 2021 short film of the same name, and the resulting debut feature premiered to enthusiastic acclaim at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival. Also starring Aaron Heffernan, John McCrea, and Asha Reid.

Ripley (April 4, Netflix)

This long-awaited eight-episode limited series adapts lesbian literary icon Patricia Highsmith’s novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley” for yet another screen incarnation – there have been at least four so far, most famously the 1999 feature film version starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow – and stars queer Irish actor Andrew Scott (BBC’s “Sherlock”, “Pride”, “All of Us Strangers”) as the title character, who is sent by a wealthy man to persuade his son to return home from an extended trip to Italy. Once there, however, the ambitious Ripley finds himself irresistibly drawn into the privileged life of leisure led by young Dickie (Johnny Flynn) and his girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning), and he embarks into “a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder.” Shot in an elegant black and white that evokes its early 1960s setting, show creator/writer/director Steve Zaillian says his adaptation was crafted to provide an interpretation  more faithful to the story and closer in tone to Highsmith’s novel than has been seen before, which is great news for fans of the original Ripley, whose adventures were continued by the late author throughout three further books after the success of the first, perhaps paving the way for follow-ups to this adaptation should it live up to the high expectations that accompany it. Eliot Sumner, Maurizio Lombardi, and John Malkovich also star.

Housekeeping for Beginners (April 5, limited theaters)

Another festival darling, this Macedonian film won the Queer Lion prize at Venice in 2023, and was submitted as an official selection for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards. While it didn’t make the cut for Oscar, it’s hitting US screens for a limited release next month – no doubt on the strength of writer/director Goran Stolevski’s previous feature, “Of An Age”, an Australian coming-of-age romance between two young men that made multiple “Best of the year” lists (including ours) in 2023. Revolving around a woman finds herself raising her girlfriend’s two troublemaking daughters despite having no interest in being a mother, the synopsis describes it as an exploration of “the universal truths of family,” framed in a “heartwarming story” of clashing wills “about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.” The pedigree alone is enough for us to suggest catching this one, if you can, when it hits theaters. Starring Anamaria Marinca, Alina Șerban, Samson Selim, Vladimir Tintor, Mia Mustafa, Džada Selim, Sara Klimoska, Rozafë Çelaj, Ajse Useini.

Glitter & Doom (April 9, digital)

Billed as “a fantastical queer romance set to the hit music of the Indigo Girls,” this indie oddball made a theatrical debut earlier this month, but heads to digital and VOD on April 9. It’s the “love at first sight journey” of its title characters, two young dreamers – an aspiring circus performer (Alex Diaz) and a struggling musician (Alan Cammish) – who embark on “an epic summer romance” until they find their love threatened by “the realities of pursuing their dreams.” Though we haven’t yet seen it ourselves, the buzz promises a campy yet uplifting and exuberant good time, and a star-studded queer-centric cast that includes Tig Notaro, Missi Pyle, Ming Na-Wen, Lea DeLaria, B-52s diva Kate Pierson, “Drag Race” alum Peppermint, Broadway star Beth Malone, and yes, even the Indigo Girls themselves.

Challengers (April 26, theaters)

From “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino comes this buzzy romantic triangle starring “Euphoria” and “Dune” star Zendaya as a former tennis prodigy turned coach whose husband – a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist, “West Side Story”) – must face off against a washed-up former best friend (Josh O’Connor, “The Crown,” “God’s Own Country”) that also happens to be his wife’s former boyfriend. According to the synopsis, “pasts and presents collide and tensions run high,” and though details are scarce beyond the basics we’ve already shared, rumors (as well as a few not-so-subtle hints in the trailers) suggest that things might take a decidedly bisexual turn. Whether or not that should turn out to be true, Guadagnino’s name on the credits is enough reason to make this a queer must-see – especially with a cast as vibrant and talented as the one he has assembled.

I Saw the TV Glow (May 5, limited theaters)

Also coming from Sundance is this horror thriller from writer/director Jane Schoenbrun, produced by recent Oscar-winner Emma Stone (with husband Dave McCary) and starring queer actor Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine as two troubled teens who bond over a fantasy TV series and find their realities starting to blur after its cancellation. Praised by reviewers for its surreal style and its exploration of queer and trans themes within its mind-bending, darkly disorienting framework, it’s likely not the kind of movie that will resonate with all viewers – but it’s probably a great match for those who enjoy their horror on the abstract side. 

In addition to all these, though their premiere dates are still not set, three much-loved  TV series are set to return this spring. Streaming network Max will debut the third seasons of both Hacks and The Sex Lives of College Girls, two popular shows with heavy queer appeal. The former, starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, is a multi-award-winning comedy about the unlikely creative partnership between an old-school stand-up legend and an edgy young comedy writer who loathe each other – or at least did in the beginning. After two seasons of alternately awkward, bittersweet, and hilarious misadventures together, they might have warmed up to each other a bit, but we’re betting that won’t keep them from locking horns. 

The latter, starring Renée Rapp, Pauline Chalamet, Alyah Chanelle, and Amrit Kaur, is also a comedy, following four freshman roommates at a fictional college as they explore love and friendship, financial stability and personal independence, and – of course – sex. It would have a draw for queer audiences even without the sapphic subplots, and for its enthusiastic fans, queer or otherwise, it will surely be a must watch.

Finally, the venerable UK sci-fi adventure series Dr. Who is set to return to the BBC sometime in May, when out queer actor of color Ncuti Gutwa (“Sex Education”, “Barbie”) officially becomes the 15th incarnation of the shape-shifting titular time lord – a role he already previewed to much fan approval in a Christmas special late last year. While the charms of this long-running fan franchise may escape viewers without an appreciation for the kind of campy intellectual fantasy that is its trademark appeal, Gutwa’s charmingly fabulous persona might be just the thing to bring a whole new army of queer converts into the fandom.

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No problem with ‘Problemista’

Julio Torres’s debut film hints at greater achievements to come

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Julio Torres and Tilda Swinton in ‘Problemista.’ (Photo courtesy of A24)

Confronted with the title of queer SNL alumnus Julio Torres’s debut feature film, the first question that comes to mind for many people might be, “What’s a ‘Problemista’?”

For the millions of retail workers, reception staffers, and hospitality clerks, however,  or anyone else whose job it is to interface with the public, the label – coined by Torres to describe the particular kind of driven personality embodied in his movie by headliner Tilda Swinton – may be, if not familiar, at least evocative enough to convey its meaning. 

We’ve all encountered them, actually; entitled, self-righteous, demanding, aggressively impatient, and unwilling to accept anything less than complete capitulation for an answer, they are the people every cashier dreads to see (and every customer loathes to be behind) in line. They seem to thrive on drama, and they don’t care how much it inconveniences or disturbs anyone in their radius. In fact, they seem at times to relish doing so, as if they were striking a blow against social injustice by bullying a grocery clerk into honoring an expired coupon. In short, they might be described as a sort of contemporary urban warrior whose response to a problem is to become a problem until they get the solution they want. But by legions of waiters and customer service reps, they are typically just described as “the customer from hell.”

The central character in Torres’s stylish, smart, and surrealistically infused contemporary New York fairy tale – Alejandro (played by Torres himself) – is not such a person, at least not when we meet him. His creative imagination nurtured by his artist mother (Catalina Saavedra) in El Salvador, he’s now a young immigrant on a work visa in the U.S., getting by in his daily life by making as few waves as possible while dreaming of being a toy designer for Hasbro. But when a minor flub gets him fired from the cryogenic company where he works, he inadvertently finds himself drawn into the never-peaceful orbit of the titular “problemista” herself: Elizabeth (Swinton), an outcast art-world maven and wife of a terminally ill eccentric painter (Wu Tang Clan founder RZA) that has frozen himself in hope of being revived when a cure is available to save his life. 

Tasked with tending to her not-quite-late husband’s legacy and estate, she is harried from her efforts to enforce her husband’s wishes via a campaign of unreasonable requests and non-negotiable demands, and sorely in need of someone to help manage the burden — and with his future in America now hanging by a thread, Alejandro takes on the challenge, hoping this terrifying woman whose path he has crossed can keep him from deportation until he can land the career opportunity he’s been waiting for.

It’s at once a familiar and an oddball conceit, a tale of toxic mentorship with shades of “The Devil Wears Prada” that weaves a strangely heartwarming sense of unexpected but perfectly matched kinship into the mix and takes us past tropes and cliché to discover a perspective that illuminates the extremes instead of reinforcing the bland status quo of our lives. While most audiences may not have experience within the elite cultural circle in which Swinton’s Elizabeth asserts her presence, the core essence of her persona is instantly recognizable to us all. And although Torres’s screenplay gets a lot of mileage – and indeed, the movie gets a lot of its appeal, thanks to Swinton’s masterful performance – out of parodying that “high-maintenance” image, it also takes us slyly past our easy judgments to reveal all the easily relatable human qualities behind the stereotype. By the time it’s over, we might still see her as a “monster,” but perhaps no more so than any of the rest of us. We might even, like Alejandro, start to see her seemingly insufferable approach to life as something a little less clueless and a lot more justifiable than we want to assume – and recognize that, even if it makes people cringe when they see her, it might sometimes be the only way to get by in a world bent on maintaining a veneer of calm banality. It might even be the only appropriate response to – and best rebellion against – the indifference of a system whose first priority is always the preservation of a placid status quo.

That, of course, is the joy of “Problemista,” a movie that successfully gets a load of intelligent laughs from the eccentricities of both its unorthodox lead characters – a non-specifically but unmistakably queer protagonist and a ferociously uncompromising “difficult woman” – yet somehow manages to turn them both into aspirational figures. It successfully pokes a savvy kind of fun at the rarified cultural niche in which it takes place – as well as at the not-so-subtly delusional constructs which govern the lives of anyone who fits within its boundaries – without diminishing or degrading its characters or making their individual pursuits feel foolish; it accomplishes this because, even in its unabashedly satirical milieu, it places the greatest emphasis on the humanity of its characters. Alejandro and Elizabeth, in almost any other film, would be supporting players – comic relief, perhaps – in a story about people whose lives were more comfortably mainstream; here, they take center stage, allowing us to laugh at their eccentricities but never letting us lose sight of the real human impulses behind them.

For that, we can thank the deeply committed performances of Swinton, an actress of legendary caliber whose background in underground and counter-cultural theater and film brings a considerable layer of stature to Torres’ freshman effort, and Torres himself, who comes across as a fully confident and seasoned performer capable of holding his own onscreen with someone of his co-star’s stature. RZA’s amusing but somehow sweet performance in flashbacks as Elizabeth’s husband also has a humanizing effect, and acclaimed Chilean actress Saavedra casts a luminous glow in her limited screen time that nevertheless seems like a keystone element of the film’s delicate balance of magical realism and absurdist comedy.

To be fair, defining “Problemista” within a label is a problematic undertaking from the start; neither comedy nor drama, fantasy nor surrealist ephemera, it combines all these elements to approach something more profound, perhaps, or at least more useful for audiences looking for a new perspective on the sometimes-soul-crushing sea of obstacles that seems to govern our daily lives. At any rate, far more important than any of these esoteric themes, it confronts – gently, if with considerable cynicism – the existential rattlesnake of navigating the immigration system of the US, straddling multiple agendas and managing to succeed with all of them.

Torres, whose stint on “SNL” led to a successful stand-up special and a gig as the creator and star of HBO’s critically acclaimed Spanish-language series “Los Espookys,” has managed an impressive debut as a filmmaker; it’s the kind of movie that hints at greater achievements to come, and we are eagerly on board to watch them unfold in years to come. No small feat for a first-time filmmaker, especially considering the number of ambitious sociocritical comedies that have tried and failed to pull off the same delicate balancing act – and even more especially because it’s also a lot of fun.

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