Though he ranks among the highest-grossing stand-ups in the world, Nate Bargatze positions himself as an everyman, a frazzled father as confused by egg cartons as he is by scrambled eggs. It’s an act Bargatze has honed for more than two decades on stage and which he brings to The Breadwinner, the gently regressive studio comedy he’s chosen for his first starring vehicle. Bargatze bakes his obscenity-free, “apolitical” material in a Mr. Mom mold, throwing on the apron and proving that so-called “women’s work” isn’t as easy as it might seem. The same goes for mainstream studio comedies.
Both the good and bad of Bargatze are present in The Breadwinner, which, like the comic, aims squarely at the center, neither aspiring to connect to his audience through deep insight nor disgust them with the horrors of reality. He stars as Nate Wilcox, a girl dad of three, whose wife, Katie (Mandy Moore), hits it big on Shark Tank and is whisked away to South Korea by Lori Greiner to make plastic, star-shaped organizers for kids. With Katie pursuing her dream of creating kitchen-drawer clutter, she leaves Nate in charge of their three daughters—13-year-old Gracie (Stella Grace Fitzgerald), tween-age Hadley (Birdie Borria), and first-grader Sam (Charlotte Anne Tucker)—for two weeks of solo parenting that he’s thus far avoided.
Can a father with over a decade of experience finally learn to be a dad? It’s a premise squarely in the “they don’t make movies like this anymore” genre for good reason. Society, some hoped, had moved on from the sexual politics of breadwinning and the idea that men could sleepwalk their way through fatherhood. They’d not only have to be around but present in the modern paradigm, but the Wilcoxes operate in more traditional ways. According to Nate, the Wilcox work-life balance means that he takes care of the “work” at his beloved Toyota dealership, where he’s the top salesman, and Katie manages “the life” of house and home. With her several time zones away, the house will become “Nate Land” until morale improves.
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. Directed by Eric Appel (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story) and co-written by Bargatze and American Vandal showrunner Dan Lagana, the film’s comedic sensibility is tuned to the surface-level observations Bargatze makes at the supermarket (there sure are a lot of milk and egg varieties!), in the laundry room (these kids sure do use a lot of towels!), and in the kitchen (this dried pasta sure does get everywhere!). Meanwhile, Bargatze’s slacker-dad delivery style and shortlist of domestic annoyances doesn’t leave a ton of room for nuance or specificity, and neither does sanding down his characters to one or two defining problems. Some of those are as easy as showing up for his daughter’s spelling bee or having a conversation with a first-grader about touching her classmates; others tiredly resurrect the overprotective father trope to deal with Gracie’s burgeoning interest in boys.
Like many comedians before him, Bargatze imbues his alter ego with the presence of his stage persona, wide-eyed and befuddled, commenting on the pains of parenthood without saying much about them. Appel gets Bargatze’s performance up to the same can’t-quite-act charm of Jerry Seinfeld and Norm Macdonald, bending reality to their limitations as a supporting cast of ringers—including an annoying and frequently flexing coworker (Kumail Nanjiani), an overly needy boss (Severance‘s Zach Cherry), goofy gig worker (Martin Herlihy), and an effeminately coded fellow stay-at-home dad (Colin Jost)—perform two or three notches louder. Not even Will Forte’s “weird roofer” character can find much to play as he worms his way into the family fold between scenes, never becoming human enough for Nate to show compassion toward nor staying weird enough to become an Allen Covert-esque side-character that powered lulls in the early Adam Sandler movies.
The Sandman certainly knows that Hollywood comedies don’t get made without a little product placement, but The Breadwinner doesn’t even bother to make it part of the joke, even when Colonel Sanders’ face is breaking the fourth wall from three separate containers in the same shot. We learn more about Toyota’s fleet of reasonably priced family-friendly minivans than we do about Nate’s family. To wit, Nate’s father (Brett Cullen) shows up for a scene or two to eat pistachios, take naps, and show off the Sequoia’s anti-lock brakes. But only a man currently gestating about building a theme park would devote so much screentime to the spoils of Walmart, a frequent theme in Bargatze’s comedy, in a montage set to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Where once a boy wanted his father to accept his right to rock, now is a man-child avoiding his laundry obligations while his wife exploits foreign labor to make plastic tchotchkes.
Fans of Bargatze’s squeaky clean comedy of domestic absurdity will feel comforted by The Breadwinner‘s lightly toasted humor. They’ll feel doubly reassured by the clips from Bargatze’s stand-up that inspired the film’s material, which roll over the credits between shots of the cast cracking up. Sure, they all had a good time, but the audience deserves something more than what they’ve been fed before.
Director: Eric Appel
Writer: Nate Bargatze, Dan Lagana
Starring: Nate Bargatze, Mandy Moore, Colin Jost, Zach Cherry, Martin Herlihy, Kumail Nanjiani, Will Forte
Release Date: May 29, 2026
Keep scrolling for more great stories.