Opening up in the surrealist vision of a child in El Salvador, “Problemista” is immediately a visual treat from the mind of comedian Julio Torres. It keeps this same zany, childlike lens as it takes Alejandro (Torres) through his struggle to obtain a United States work visa. 

The solution he thinks of: work unpaid for known art critic tyrant Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton) as she attempts to immortalize the work of her cryogenically frozen husband, Bobby (RZA), by putting on a show of his realistic oil paintings of eggs. If he manages to complete this seemingly impossible task, she agrees to co-sign his work visa. The red-haired, outspoken Elizabeth serves both as the passive Ale’s primary antagonist as well as his inspiration.  

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The film is one of the only portrayals of how hellish immigration can be and with a million seemingly contradictory and impossible steps to follow. This is poignantly portrayed using magical realism as a never-ending bureaucratic maze of drab, boxy cubicles and a key sitting behind a locked door. There’s also an hourglass the film frequently cuts to as a symbol of his time running out, which borders on being too on-the-nose. 

“Problemista” is Torres’ directorial debut and encapsulates all the eccentricity of Torres’ brand. Alejandro dreams of being a toy designer in New York City at Hasbro. 

His imagined toy designs, such as a Barbie with her fingers crossed behind her back to add drama to the Dreamhouse or a snake in a can who apologizes for scaring you but says it was the only way to escape the can, feel like a sequel to his HBO stand-up special, “My Favorite Shapes by Julio Torres.” Fans of Torres’ work on “Saturday Night Live” — most famously in the Ryan Gosling sketch “Papyrus” — can recognize his bizarre sketchlike style.

The movie premiered nearly a year ago at SXSW and was slated for a fall premiere with A24 set to finance and distribute it, but the writer and actor strikes pushed its release date back to March 2024. Emma Stone serves as a producer; she previously worked with Torres in another of his most prominent “SNL” sketches, “The Actress.”

The film’s comedy relies more on Torres’ wittiness rather than big laugh-out-loud moments. While there is an ongoing plot line, scenes occasionally feel like stand-alone sketches, which plays into Torres’ strengths as a writer. 

A continuing joke on the use of an outdated and impossible-to-learn software, FileMaker Pro, provides levity for the audience even in the most intense scenes. Topics like privilege are almost casually tackled like when Ale learns that his affluent “nepo baby” coworker Bingham (James Scully) has been awarded “a Guggenheim Grant to Pursue Being Cute in the Arts” while the talented Ale struggles to find a job.

The surrealism of minor characters, such as an anthropomorphic Craigslist (Larry Owens) and a melodramatic, murderous Bank of America employee (River L. Ramirez), immerse the viewer into Torres’ unhinged world. Elizabeth’s iPhone flashlight being perpetually on and Ale’s prancelike gait are small details that completely engage the audience and make them feel part of his version of reality.

While the film excels in surrealist fantasies, the line between eccentricity and stupidity was crossed with the cryogenic chambers. The entire FreezeCorp company provided little to the movie other than an easy plot device to create tension. 

The moral of the film gets a bit muddled toward the end as Ale does become less passive. While he gained more confidence through his relationship with Elizabeth, her character could be described as a deranged Karen who yells at waiters and minimum-wage workers, losing any sympathy the audience was supposed to have for her. Swinton masterfully portrays Elizabeth as a foil to Ale, but the writing fails her character. 

It also doesn’t necessarily offer any solutions to actually deal with the layers of bureaucracy in the world. Torres succeeds in acknowledging the unimaginably complex nature of being an immigrant in the U.S. but leaves the viewer with a slapdash happy ending that doesn’t provide much of a larger payoff in this systemic issue.

Torres’ movie delivers what fans hope to see from the comedian. It’s funny, colorful and idiosyncratic but a bit underbaked in its message.