Diksha Sundriyal
In ‘The Breadwinner,’ a man discovers what it truly means to be a father and take care of his kids when his wife goes away for a few weeks. Directed by Eric Appel, the comedy-drama film focuses on Nate Wilcox, who is the most successful car dealer in his area. However, his focus on his job has cut him off from his family to the point that he has no idea how much work it takes for his wife to keep everything running. When she gets a chance to make her dream come true, it falls on Nate to take care of their daughters and the house. It takes him just one day to discover how much his wife juggles by herself, but it takes several weeks for him to learn how to do it on his own. The film sends a strong message wrapped in comedy, but what makes it even more impactful is that it draws on the writer’s real experiences. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Breadwinner Presents Nate Bargatze’s Real Experiences Through a Fictionalized Lens
‘The Breadwinner’ is a fictional story written by comedian Nate Bargatze with his longtime friend, screenwriter Dan Lagana. While the overall premise of the story is fictional, the core idea and several notable sequences in the film were inspired by Bargatze’s own experiences as the father of a 13-year-old daughter. Establishing himself as one of the leading standup comedians means that, like Nate Wilcox, Bargatze has also been so absorbed in his work that his wife has taken care of everything in the house. The comedian has been candid about this dynamic and discussed it in several standups. One of the core incidents that propelled the story was Bargatze recalling the time when he received a call from his daughter’s teacher when she was in elementary school.
He was asked which bus his daughter should be put in. He first told them to ask his wife, only for them to reveal that they had tried her first, but she didn’t pick up. Having no idea of what to do in this situation, he asked them to put her in a yellow bus, adding that he would find her. The comic has talked about how certain things in the standup act have to be exaggerated for the punch line, but the fact that he had no idea how much stuff his wife handled at home was completely accurate. In one of the jokes, he recalled an incident in which he didn’t even know his wife had put a new roof on the house until his neighbor pointed it out.
Bargatze used tidbits like this and added them in the film to show how incompetent the film’s protagonist is when it comes to all the stuff at his home. The comedian also revealed that many real-life incidents have informed several crucial scenes in the movie, including the horse scene and the fact that he didn’t know they sleep lying down. By adding these elements, he and Lagana hoped the audience would see themselves in them and relate to them in one way or another. At the same time, the writers also made sure that Nate Wilcox was a character of its own and not some caricature of Bargatze. While certain events are borrowed from his life, the overall arc of the story, particularly the lessons the character learns and grows from, is unique to the film.
Apart from his own experience with fatherhood, Bargatze was also focused on making it a family film. Having grown up in a Christian household, he remembered that as a child, he was not allowed to watch many films. So, the only ones that he got to watch at that time were the kind of stuff that a whole family could watch together and enjoy. What’s better than a story about a father learning how to run the house? The comedian-turned-actor also noted that the family film genre has declined considerably over the years. He wishes to change that with films like ‘The Breadwinner,’ which, despite their fictional premise, can bring families together.
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