Happy this hit streaming so quick after bombing out on catching it in its very brief and uneven run at local theaters. It’s worth checking out…. as quirky and amusing as it is.

The flick is about you Salvadorian man trying to find a job that will sign off on his work Visa so he can stay in the US. He chance encounters a borderline manic woman who hires him for knowing File Maker Pro (and who doesn’t?). This quirky weird flick descends into a lot of moseying and abstractions as it follows these two comrades in art and toy making.

Yeah, this is a very odd duck of a film. In gives off more accessible Wes Anderson vibes… not in its visuals, but in its odd characters, strange detours, and vibrant dialog. If you can vibe with its twee quirkiness, there’s a surprisingly touching film embedded in some of these overwhelming characters.

The lead is Julio Torres, himself a Salvadorian who both wrote and directed the film. His casual, ambling desperation and laconic charisma is a lot of unexpected fun. And three cheers on a first movie that managed to land Tilda Swinton.

Yes, Tilda Swinton playing a character who is 126% a lot. A manic, objectionable character who somehow shatters expectations as an awful human being by turning in a charming, semi-warm performance. In most other hands, her character would be totally unapproachable and unappealing… and while she walks that line, her relationship with Torres is valuable and unexpected.

The movie does lose a significant amount of steam in its middle stretch and I was disappointed to mentally drop the score… until the very end. An unexpected but highly welcome and totally in-character sequence and exchange that proved the madness of the movie to a T. We’d spent so much time with these two leads that what they pull off in the end just made sense.

This is a fascinating and fun and odd film by a writer/director who’s got the goods. Maybe borrowing a bit much from other writer/directors but that’s cool when the film has enough of its own voice to skate by. Probably a bit more editing next time would help the pacing… but the same amount of humanity will always keep the ratings high.

Score: 85