Kajillionaire (2020)

While a poor disenfranchised white family of three spend their time stealing and scheming to avoid employment, they run into Melanie (played by Gina Rodriguez); a young friendly excitable woman of colour, of which with her charismatic charm, brings the family of three to life. When the families only child and daughter - Old Dolio (played by Evan Rachel Wood) starts to notice her parents taking a liking to Melanie, Old Dolio’s purpose, upbringing and sexuality comes into question.

Director Miranda July is no stranger to creating bizarre, provocative, contemplative yet heart warming premises to films about love, mortality, youth, death and legacy, and Kajillionaire is no different but might be her best and most effective to date.

Kajillionaire is a portrait of privilege, fundamentally about an older generation refusing to admit to a future generation’s potential and talent, while ignoring the impact that the older generations decisions has made on the path of future generations. Leaving future generations with nothing but their compassion and empathy. A point all to real in this day and age as millennial generations such as my own, have struggled to put a foot on this world using methods our parents could only benefit from. As the Only Fans accounts start popping up everywhere and ride shares are continuing to be prevalent; these community minded ways of income are the staples to newer generations survival due to impossible school loans and stubborn society norms passed down from more privileged generations. Kajillionaire is also about racial privilege, Old Dolio’s parents (played by Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger) live a life of theft under a white Caucasian bubble (ironically bubbles being a plot point in the movie). Kajillionaire points out the parody of a white protagonist in a comedy film, committing crime without thought of what this scenario would be like for a protagonist of colour. As the films plot goes on, the parents use Melanie to carry out new schemes leaving Melanie to reminder them that her being a person of colour committing a crime is riskier than for them, and ignoring the general racism she has to endure in order to help them. The film continues to point out the selfishness of the parents as they make hyperbole out of common occurrences such as; earthquakes and possible plane mishaps; mirroring older generations making grand comparisons about their past circumstances to future generations current circumstances.

As the main protagonist, Old Dolio comes to realize her parents haven’t been there for her as she once thought. And through her jealously of/conflict with Melanie, she learns to grow and encounter the world she wanders and schemes in, and what a stable experience feels like and what real family feels like, as she realizes being a part of a project isn’t what life has to be constantly. That her potential is interwoven with a passionate for life, though stifled by her parent’s dark cynicism. Old Dolio finds love through genuine relatability and companionship, not tribe, as many Millennials have come to find out.

Kajillionaire touches upon themes we’ve been dealing with as a society in reality with our current climates almost instinctually. Older white people demanding for rights they already have, with corrupt state of minds as they abuse others and crack the whip where they see fit but search out sympathy as soon as they break the law themselves. These generations so jaded and past their time, that they can’t change enough to stop taking from people who just got here under the thumb of capitalism, 

 

Evan Rachel Wood does her best comedic and best work in general as a character we haven’t seen in any movie, so shy and timid and androgynous with a muffled voice more and more hilarious the more excited her character gets. Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger sell their awkward creepy and demanding parent character to the tee. With Debra Winger unrecognizable and fantastic as Old Dolio’s mother. And Gina Rodriguez completely shines as Melanie, bringing a realistic warmth, fun and quirky maturity to the rest of the cast.

 

Kajillionaire is an extremely timely and much needed heist tale that is one of the funniest, charming movies of the year, proving Miranda July’s expanding talent as a writer/director, which has become well crafted over the years, within subject matter and comedic timing alike. As well as having an ear and vision for the bizarre with vivid colours and characters and inventive ideas, though we are now living in an era where her films are no longer bizarre but our reality. 10/10.

 

 

• Maurice Jones