Kajillionaire

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Artist and filmmaker Miranda July is many things — offbeat, iconoclastic, absurd — but one
thing she is not is prolific. July’s stock-in-trade are perfectly observed, beautifully crafted
miniatures of characters who live on the fringes and have little truck with normalcy, broken
people often filled with a sense of longing. Kajillionaire brilliantly hits all of those touchstones,
but this time within the framework of a traditionally male-dominated genre.

Kajillionaire is Miranda July’s take on a con movie, a kind of ‘Ocean’s Three’ in bad clothing. The
Dynes are a family of ramshackle grifters — dad Robert (Richard Jenkins), mum Theresa (Debra
Winger) and daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) — whose scams are decidedly small-scale:
robbing a post-office safe-deposit box that scores a tie; returning gift certificates for dosh; Old
Dolio pretending to be pregnant and taking part in a ‘positive parenting’ class for cash. An
impetus to get more ambitious comes when they owe their weird-voiced landlord (Mark Ivanir)
$1,500 in rent to stay in an empty office-style space where the walls are constantly flooded with
pink, soapy suds that have to be collected in buckets. So, after winning a trip to New York in a
comp, Old Dolio — the explanation for her strange name is genius — comes up with a scheme
to blag airline insurance (to the tune of $1,500) via some bogus lost luggage. While the grift
doesn’t go exactly to plan, it does bring extrovert Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) into their orbit.

It’s at this point that Kajillionaire changes tack. Ushered into the gang, Melanie invites them on
a scam where they inveigle their way into the lives of OAPs in order to pick up objects to flog,
but they are caught off guard when they come across a lonely old man, clearly dying, and begin
to act like a normal family to cheer him along. Melanie holds up a mirror to the clan, especially
opening up Old Dolio to the kind of familial warmth and kindness she has never been given.
How this all plays out is surprising, human and tender. It’s a flick that starts with a con. And
ends with a connection. Kajillionaire is funny, original, sad and singular. In other words, it’s Peak
Miranda July.