Sean projects romantic fantasies onto their interactions, while Ernesto asks his wife for guidance with the “gringo” who pays for his company. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Papi Chulo at Amazon.com. Papi Chulo is redeemed, just, by a couple of terrifically good lead performances and the decision to not have Ernesto utter gnomic wisdom at the hapless Sean. Ernesto doesn’t speak or understand English, but he’s willing to humor Sean’s neediness for $20 an hour. © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. But, again, things can get complicated. Warm exploration of vulnerability in unlikely friendship. 'Papi Chulo': Film Review | TIFF 2018. But Sean doesn’t fully grasp the situation or its optics, and frustratingly, neither does "Papi Chulo.". Papi Chulo is a charming, well-acted film about a lonely man and the only person he could find to be his friend. In the case of "Papi Chulo," this one is about a depressed, upper middle-class white man named Sean, who meets an immigrant worker named Ernesto outside a hardware store, and pays Ernesto to spend time with him. John Butler ’s grating “Papi Chulo” manages to out-“ Green Book ” the Best Picture-winner when it comes to teeth-gnashing racial dynamics and ham-fisted sentimentality, its story built around a white person’s epiphany about those who look different than him. Ernesto just sits there, half-smiles, and Sean rambles on. Papi Chulo is a bit too casual in its treatment of moments of serious mental health crisis in Sean's life but it has a huge heart I couldn't resist. Sidney Poitier’s 7 Most Memorable Performances, All Harry Potter Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer. Matt Bomer is very effective as a man truly heartbroken, though. Toronto Film Review: ‘Papi Chulo’ John Butler's engaging dramedy pivots on the improbable friendship between an Anglo TV weatherman and a Mexican day laborer in L.A. Butler does cut away from Sean’s main perspective in one instance for a joke—to see Ernesto joke with his wife after attending the party—but there's no time allotted for Patiño's performance to have a life of its own. The buddy comedy Papi Chulo could go wrong in all sorts of ways, so it’s kind of a minor miracle how much it actually gets right. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Oh no, Hollywood did it again. As the needy Sean takes his new companion Ernesto through recognizable landmarks like Echo Park, Sean talks at Ernesto about his problems, treating him like the therapist he should have seen long ago. But what he longs for is companionship, a desire that is temporarily satisfied when he hires a day laborer, Ernesto (Alejandro Patiño), to paint his deck. Ultimately, its most poignant details come from depicting a nonsexual friendship between a straight guy and a gay guy. It all makes one even more dismayed as to what purpose Ernesto serves for the bigger picture. Nick Allen is an Assistant Editor at RogerEbert.com and is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. Review: John Butler’s Papi Chulo Confuses Objectification for Connection. Copyright © Fandango. Especially with his lack of self-awareness, Sean is essentially a parody run amok, and "Papi Chulo" could have been a much sharper commentary on how the real-life people who think like him are extremely misguided. Despite a language barrier and having nothing in common, the two men develop an unexpected but profound friendship. This banally titled buddy dramedy won’t solve our critical drought of empathy or advance our social justice preoccupations, but it’s a mostly enjoyable drop in the right direction. This isn’t off-putting for Ernesto, who is hardly your standard-issue homophobe, but it’s slightly unsettling, especially when Linda (Elena Campbell-Martinez), his wife, only half-jokingly observes that her husband might be playing the Julia Roberts role in a “Pretty Woman” scenario. 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There's an offbeat charm to the low-key American comedy-drama Papi Chulo, which gets under the skin as it explores some deep emotional themes with a light touch. A shrill and insipid spectacle of cross-cultural communion, but don’t call it stupid, as that would suggest that it doesn’t know exactly what it’s doing. • I wanted Papi Chulo to be about a friendship between two men who would ordinarily never meet or speak to each other. If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. It is a little slice of something great. Fairly early on, Ernesto recognizes that Sean is gay. When Sean breaks down, Ernesto comforts him; when Sean invades Ernesto’s privacy, the other man forgives him. Sean quickly distracts his new hire with more leisurely duties, inviting Ernesto on hikes and to parties. TWITTER Matt … The incident causes him to leave the job for a while, and we find out that it’s related to sadness for a past partner named Carlos, who left behind only a tree on the back deck. Papi Chulo 2019, R, 98 min. © Copyright 2020 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC.