Diksha Sundriyal
Things take a turn for Nate Wilcox in ‘The Breadwinner’ when his wife Katie gets an opportunity of a lifetime to get a business off the ground. While Nate is supportive of her dream, it also means taking on the household responsibilities so she can focus on her work. This is entirely new territory for him because his wife has handled everything on her own so far, and he has no idea where to start. While the film follows Nate’s learning curve, we also witness Katie’s exponential success with her invention, the Star Minder. Interestingly, Nate’s character is loosely based on the film’s co-writer and star, Nate Bargatze, which means his real-life wife has served as the reference point for Katie. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Breadwinner Presents a Heavily Fictionalised Version of Nate Bargatze’s Wife
Nate Bargatze co-wrote ‘The Breadwinner’ with Dan Lagana, picking up real events from his experience as a father to inform the film’s plot. A major point was that, much like his cinematic counterpart, Bargatze was entirely clueless about his daughter and everything else around the house that his wife, Laura, took care of on her own. He brought this dynamic into the movie between Nate and Katie, but the character isn’t entirely based on his wife. Certain things about Mandy Moore’s role are influenced by Laura, but Katie remains a unique character in her own right.
Bargatze met his wife when they were both employed at Applebee’s. At first, they became friends, and he recalled that she made him laugh a lot. Eventually, they started dating, and at that time, he was not the famous, successful comedian he is now. They were wedded in 2006, and while Nate had his heart set on standup comedy, Laura had a career of her own. She has a degree in business administration from Middle Tennessee State University and has worked as a marketing coordinator for Applebee’s. When the couple moved to New York, she worked as a corporate event planner for over a decade. In between this, they had their daughter, Harper, and Laura took a break from work to be at home.
Bargatze noted that the transition from a working professional to a stay-at-home mother was a big one for his life partner. But at the time, his standup comedy career had started to take off, and one of them needed to be at home. This is when she took on most of the responsibilities at home, leading to the experiences that Bargatze later shared in his standups and eventually fictionalized in the movie. As their daughter grew up, Laura decided to return to work, but instead of returning to her old job, she and her husband collaborated on new projects, such as ‘The Nateland Podcast’. While he is the face of the program, she works behind the scenes as the producer and talent manager at their company, Bargatze Enterprises.
The Fictional Star Finder is a Potent Plot Device in The Breadwinner
In the film, Katie has been a stay-at-home mom for so long that a new business idea completely rips her away from home for the first few weeks. She lands funding from ‘Shark Tank’ for Star Minder, the planner she invented to organize her daughters’ schedules and help them figure things out for themselves. As great and helpful as it sounds, the planner is not real. It was simply a plot device created to propel Katie’s arc in the right direction. The pitch, however, was made to the real Sharks of ‘Shark Tank.’ The production was scheduled to coincide with the show’s filming, allowing the film crew to shoot at the original set with the real Sharks.
For Mandy Moore, who plays Katie, it added a sense of realism that made her so nervous that she felt like she was actually pitching something to the Sharks and wanted them to approve of her business idea. The Sharks also played along, treating the Star Minder as a real product and ad-libbing lines, heightening the sense of realism in the scene. Apart from that, Moore found Katie relatable in how she plans everything. However, the ‘This is Us‘ star also noted that she doesn’t entirely relate to Nate and Katie’s dynamic because her real-life partner is much more hands-on as compared to the film’s protagonist.
What Moore could relate to was the push and pull Katie experiences once she has to juggle her home life and her job. The actress loved that the film highlights the challenges that women face, particularly when they are single-handedly carrying the whole house on their backs. But she related most to the part where Katie wants to make her dream come true while constantly thinking about how she is not with her daughters. Finding that work-life balance is integral to Katie’s story, which makes her more relatable to the audience, even though she is largely fictional.
Read More: Is The Breadwinner Based on the True Story of Nate Bargatze?
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