Product placement is not new, but “The Breadwinner” rubs your face in it. Unfortunately, the biggest product this movie is selling is the outdated notion that fathers are so incompetent that they don’t know where their own kids go to school, or how to make toast, or how to do the laundry.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Stella Fitzgerald, Nate Bargatze Charlotte Tucker and Birdie Borria star in “The Breadwinner.”Frank Masi/Sony Pictures
God forbid you do have these skills, or are a stay at home dad, because you’re assumed to be a soft, desperate, hen-pecked man at best, or unmanly at worst. Colin Jost’s wimpy stay at home dad, Conor, is treated like dirt by Nate because he’s not as butch as the Marlboro Man.
In Nate’s opening narration, he calls himself “the breadwinner” because his wife, Katie (Mandy Moore) stays at home with their three daughters, Gracie (Stella Grace Fitzgerald), Hadley (Birdie Borria), and Sam (Charlotte Ann Tucker). He works as the top salesman at a Toyota dealership in Nashville. Every year, Nate wins tickets to a Titans game that celebrates his salesman award on the JumboTron.
Nate Bargatze and Mandy Moore star in “The Breadwinner.”Jennifer Clasen/Sony Pictures
When the star-shaped organizer Katie creates to help the kids keep track of their schedules leads to a $100,000 investment deal from “Shark Tank” star Lori Greiner, Katie must head to South Korea to oversee the manufacturing of her creation. She’ll only be gone two weeks. That’s 14 days, folks. This is a movie where a man can’t take care of his kids for 14 days.
“The Breadwinner” thinks big laughs should come from scenes where a father doesn’t know a damn thing about his kids. Forget about all the “women’s work” he doesn’t know how to do — life skills like cleaning the house or washing clothes. He doesn’t even know his kids’ habits or likes. He leaves all that up to his wife, because that’s what men are supposed to do, right?
There’s simply no excuse for this retro nonsense except to hang yet another example of the Idiot Plot from it. That’s a plot that would be resolved if everyone in the movie wasn’t an idiot. Several times, Nate has opportunities to ask his wife for help, yet he constantly tells her all is well, even when their incompetent roofer (Will Forte) is destroying his house.
Meanwhile, one of his kids is kissing and hugging all her classmates against their will. This is supposed to be cute. Instead of telling her to stop it, and why she should respect boundaries, he bribes her with a PTSD-stricken pony he bought for $100.
Nate Bargatze stars in “The Breadwinner.”Frank Masi/Sony Pictures
Instead of washing their outfits, Nate sprays his kids’ clothing with their mother’s perfume, then sends the kids to school in dirty clothes. He’s more concerned with beating his rival Peyton (Kumail Nanjiani) for salesman of the year, so much so that he breaks his temporary work leave while Katie is away. Nanjiani is one of the few people of color in this film, and his sole purpose is to be put in his place by Nate.
These are the jokes. Couple them with late-in-the-game, half-hearted speeches about learning to be a good father and you have one of 2026’s worst movies.
1/2 ★
THE BREADWINNER
Directed by Eric Appel. Written by Nate Bargatze, Dan Lagana. Starring Nate Bargatze, Mandy Moore, Will Forte, Colin Jost, Stella Grace Fitzgerald, Birdie Borria, Charlotte Ann Tucker. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 95 min. PG (the only offensive thing is its gender politics)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.