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    The Breadwinner – Review Thread


    *To Nate and their three children, Katie is the ultimate mom — she manages their comically chaotic household with equal parts efficiency and love, and everything runs perfectly. But when Katie's household invention leads to a once-in-a-lifetime deal on Shark Tank and takes her on a prolonged business trip, Nate has to figure out how to keep the house from (literally) falling apart. He and his kids soon learn that while he may not do it like mom, he can figure out how to do it his way. Welcome to the dad era.*

    Cast: Nate Bargatze, Mandy Moore, Colin Jost, Zach Cherry, Martin Herlihy

    Rotten Tomatoes: 25% (8 reviews)

    Metacritic: 32

    Some reviews:

    Matt Schimkowitz, AV Club C- – Bargatze’s commitment to “clean” comedy, which is to say, material that is inoffensive to white upper-class suburbanites, means defanging whatever bite Breadwinner might otherwise have.

    https://www.avclub.com/the-breadwinner-review

    Alison Foreman, IndieWire C+ – For the most part, Appel wisely avoids pushing Nate toward overly heightened emotional territory — instead, treating Bargatze’s deadpan confusion like its own immutable law of physics inside the silly world of The Breadwinner.

    https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/the-breadwinner-movie-review-nate-bargatze-1235196447/#:\\\~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20Breadwinner%E2%80%9D%20is%20truly%20decent,has%20really%20got%20you%20covered.

    Natalia Winkelman, Variety – Select moments may land a laugh, but zoom out a little, and the real joke is that this movie was made in 2026.

    https://variety.com/2026/film/reviews/the-breadwinner-review-nate-bargatze-1236759814/

    Fred Topel, United Press International – The way it bends over backwards to avoid anything threatening feels disingenuous to the actual disconnect between Nate and Katie, and couples like them.

    https://www.upi.com/Entertainment\\\_News/Movies/2026/05/27/Mandy-Moore-Nate-Bargatze-Breadwinner-review/1641779836969/#google\\\_vignette

    Rotten Tomatoes page:
    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_breadwinner_2026

    Metacritic page:
    https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-breadwinner-2026/

    by UniverslBoxOfficeGuy

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    40 Comments

    1. Kwilly462 on

      The trailer made it look like a Disney Channel original. I mean, I guess there’s an audience out there for this stuff.

    4. NuclearGhandi1 on

      Saw the trailer for this over the weekend. Looks like boomer humor tradition gender roles slop in the worst way possible. Pass

    5. FromansSausage on

      This was my favorite Toyota Walmart commercial to hit theatres this year.

    7. Rufus2fist on

      Looks like the kind of movie I will watch hung over and stoned on my mother in laws couch while she makes pizza and loves it so much she asks me to rewind every 15 minutes cause she missed something.

    8. piscian19 on

      Saw this coming from the trailer. I was hoping Nate would have enough self-awareness to know this was a bad idea, but money is money I guess. The production company is super weird.

    9. k-murder on

      Who is interested in seeing another “moms away, dad needs to run the house, but for some reason is completely incompetent as a father and a man” movie? Hasn’t this trope be beat to death?

    13. quaranTV on

      I assumed this was a straight to streaming Prime comedy. I want comedy back in theaters but like not this. I’d be shocked if this does well at the box office. Why couldn’t Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice get a theatrical release?!

    14. Webofshadows1 on

      Glad it is getting low reviews. I’m tired of movies pretending dads are idiots.

    17. KEMI_IS_WlNNlNG on

      the concept of this is ridiculous in a bad way like oh man has to take care of his children? how crazy

    19. kbarnett514 on

      So, the plot of this movie, releasing in the year of our lord 2026, is “Man has to figure out how to be a functional adult when his wife isn’t around to take the full mental load of running a household, which he has apparently been fully checked out for for their entire marriage”?

    20. MyUnclesALawyer on

      Why is this in theatres? I guess because it feels weirdly….. Christian?

    21. flysly on

      I’m kinda over the whole, “LOL Dad’s cant parent. They’re all bumbling idiots!” Trope

    22. thebaggedavenger on

      I genuinely don’t know who this movie is for. Even more baffling is how much this has been advertised by Canada’s biggest theatre chain. Been seeing promos for it during preshows for ages and the tickets went on sale super early. Like, if for some stupid reason I wanted to, I could have bought tickets for this movie before I could get tickets for Mando.

    24. Internal_Wheel_89 on

      It’ll be interesting to see if this bombs or not. This probably looked like a safe idea in the first half of 2025 when it was filmed, based on Trump’s win and Project 2025 going full steam ahead… I think the worm has definitely turned, though, and I’m guessing this will be DOA at the box office. Who knows, though!

    25. hanburgundy on

      I feel like Nate Bargatze’s whole initial charm was his “holy shit, how did I get here, I’m totally unqualified for all of this” bit, only now it’s obvious that it’s not at all a bit and he genuinely is just a very average guy with no real point of view or exceptional abilities.

    26. allertedshark86 on

      I think Nate Bargatze has entered or is entering his Kevin Hart/The Rock phase where he’s literally shoved down our throats constantly and he will only ever be able to play one type of character and that character is literally himself

    28. too_oh_ate on

      Why the fuck is Nate making a movie this bad and this unfunny? Kills any desire to watch any of his future comedy. Horrible decision by him.
      Just awful.

    29. Datelesstuba on

      I like that moment in the trailer where he blows an air horn during a spelling bee, implying he has never been to any of his children’s school events before.

    30. ShanklyGates_2022 on

      I thought it was some kind of Mr Mom remake or reimagining when i saw the trailer before Mando and Grogu. Reviews would suggest it doesnt hit those same highs though

    31. the_dayman623 on

      Yeah that seems about right. Saw him on tour earlier this year because I like his standup and the trailer for this was played multiple times during breaks in sets. The first time I made up my mind it wasn’t gonna be good but the 6th time made me not even wanna give it a try because it was bad and annoying. He should probably just stick to standup

    34. badwolf1013 on

      I saw the trailer the other day.

      Not one joke lands. In the TRAILER. 

      How bad is your movie that you couldn’t scrape together a minute of material that makes it look funny? 

      I don’t need to read any reviews. That trailer told me everything I need to know.

    36. nimbuscloud9 on

      Watch this turn the trope entirely on its head and actually be smart about it lol

    37. DeoGame on

      Kevin O’Leary’s acting career hits a slump. Wow… what a shame… gosh…

      Anyways, Weird was a great time. It’s a shame Eric Appel couldn’t elevate this. But it looked ROUGH

    38. Dallywack3r on

      I wonder how long it’ll take Nate to pivot hard to right wing Christian comedy once the rest of the country wakes up to his schtick of “I’m just a dumb redneck man”

    39. bossyhosen on

      I get that this won’t play well with a more discerning A24 crowd, but I actually think that for a lot of regular people this will be just be a feel good family comedy

    40. Steamedcarpet on

      I hated the trailer for this movie. “Its 2026 and Men still cant handle being a stay at home dad”

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