REVIEW: ‘The Breadwinner’ Is A Family Comedy for People Who Hate Their Families

Eric Appel‘s The Breadwinner (2026) is not actually Stan Dragoti‘s 1983 comedy Mr. Mom, though it’s easy to see how one might become confused. The similarity of a man struggling to parent his three children as his wife enters the workforce is obvious. The Breadwinner screenwriters Nate Bargatze and Dan Lagana even manage to lift a scene or two from their predecessor. But it would be unfair for any critic to simply decry The Breadwinner as a Mr. Mom ripoff when The Breadwinner is so utterly unique in its stupidity.

Nate Bargatze stars as Nate, who, in ’90s sitcom fashion, is just similar enough to the actual Bargatze for the script to lean on the comedian’s past stand-up routines. Also in ’90s sitcom fashion, he actively dislikes spending time with his wife, Katie (Mandy Moore), and their three daughters outside of the one football game he takes them to each year. As he puts it, the ideal work-life balance is one where he works, and his wife handles life.

When an organizing tool Katie designed lands on Shark Tank, it secures an investment deal that is rather arbitrarily dependent on Nate’s ability to parent the kids solo for a few weeks. This is bad news for Nate. He can barely take care of himself, much less tackle more serious issues like keeping his kids clothed or remembering where they go to school. But he’s going to try! Just not very hard.

The Breadwinner makes Mr. Mom seem progressive. 

Mr. Mom is a flawed film that began to show its age decades ago, which makes it truly remarkable just how badly it outpaces The Breadwinner in regards to basic nuance. In Mr. Mom, Michael Keaton‘s Jack faces a steep learning curve regarding some basic household tasks. But he powers through until he reaches competence because he loves his family and they are depending on him. This same learning curve confronts Nate, who gives up and never once manages to cook a meal or do a load of laundry successfully.

Throughout the film, Nate gets in the way of his wife’s success and renders his family’s home unlivable. His only growth is evolving just enough to feel some guilt about this and try to do the right thing at the eleventh hour. He fails, but the effort is impressive enough to call it a happy ending.

Of course, any scenes involving actual character growth would likely have been obscured by some sort of corporate sponsor. The Breadwinner is so packed with product placement that it’s surprising there isn’t a montage where Nate explains to both his children and the audience that there are always great deals waiting for you at your local Walmart.

There’s more product placement than there is movie. 

Just kidding! That montage actually happens. It’s set to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” because, sadly, “We Are Gonna Take It (It Being Your Corporate Sponsorship Money)” isn’t a real song. Between that, Nate’s love for his job as a Toyota salesman (The safest car on the road! You won’t need to buy another new car for years!), and the laughably conspicuous product and logo shots, it is entirely possible this film turned a profit before it ever hit theaters.

Along the way, Nate manages to mutter some stand-up routines to confused extras. Nate will not cook a meal for his family, but he will tell a grocery store employee that he doesn’t understand the difference between free-range and cage-free eggs. Nate is not involved in his daughter’s education, but he will express to her teacher his utter bewilderment at being expected to help teach his kids new-age topics like… consent? Really? That’s a scene in this movie? Can anyone else smell burnt toast?

This is obviously an extremely harsh judgment for a comedy. There have been plenty of unlikeable characters who have been made watchable by being funny. But The Breadwinner is not funny. It should be! There’s a bevy of actual comedic talent involved here. But Colin Jost is undermined by a script that gives him a wildly inconsistent characterization. Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Cherry, and Martin Herlihy all seem like they shot their scenes over an afternoon or two on their time off from better gigs. And Bargatze just can’t manage any of the charisma, energy, or timing that has made him such an incredible success on the stand-up circuit.

Nate Bargatze can’t carry the film, and the writing lets down his co-stars. 

That said, the casting does also manage the film’s only watchable moments. Will Forte does fine as the bumbling idiot who is still smarter than the actual movie. And the young actresses playing Nate’s daughters deliver a few glimpses of a funnier and more emotional film despite the script operating under the ’90s sitcom assumption that adolescent girls can only pick one character trait from the hat of popular (Stella Grace Fitzgerald), smart (Birdie Borria), or liking animals (Charlotte Ann Tucker). But an actor of Forte’s caliber should be able to manage more than a chuckle or two, and expecting three tweens to carry a movie on their back is almost certainly a child labor violation.

In 70 or 80 years it is entirely possible that some sociologist will dust off The Breadwinner and put together a meaningful analysis of the film’s place in a 2026 where a man can say that fatherhood is under attack in one breath and explain why he can’t change a diaper in the next. But we do not yet have the benefit of hindsight. For now, we just have this terrible movie.

The Breadwinner is in theaters now.