"Kajillionaire" - Film Review
There are few movies quite like Miranda July’s Kajillionaire. What begins as a movie about grifters and scam artists turns into one of the most achingly honest portrayals of loneliness ever made. Led by Evan Rachel Wood’s transformative performance of Old Dolio, Kajillionaire’s focus is on the scamming Dyne family. Parents Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger) have raised Old Dolio in a life of petty theft. They even named their daughter Old Dolio in an attempt to get money from a homeless man named Old Dolio, who won the lottery. Their get-rich-quick lifestyle meant more to them than providing a loving and thoughtful name for their child. For some reason, they thought the homeless person would leave any money that was left when he died to his namesake. Old Dolio’s life has been filled with lying, stealing, and scamming since the day she was born.
When the movie begins, the Dyne family is $1,500 behind on rent, and their landlord has given them until the end of the week to make good on it. As they attempt to pull off a scam to raise rent money, they meet Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), who is immediately fascinated by the lifestyle of the Dynes. Her work as an eyeglass salesperson opens the door to a new realm of possibilities: Melanie’s elderly patients. Whether through stealing blank checks from clients’ homes or trying to convince them to gift their valuables, the Dyne family sees the senior citizens as the fastest way to make money.
Old Dolio has never had a life or an identity outside of being a con artist with her family. Robert and Theresa have never treated her like a daughter or offered her any real affection. Instead, they treat her as a tool in their criminal arsenal, just another way for them to make money. Her aching loneliness radiates through the screen. In an early scene, Old Dolio tries to exchange a free massage coupon for cash. When she’s told it’s not possible, she accepts the massage and is overwhelmed by the physical touch and by having another person’s attention focused solely on her. She breaks down in tears because it’s more than she has ever received from her parents.
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Old Dolio sees the way her parents offer Melanie attention and care, she realizes that they are capable of expressing love, but not to her. Old Dolio gives her parents an ultimatum: tell her they love her or she will leave them forever. They aren’t able to tell her they love her because they don’t. They need her, but they don’t love her, and somehow can’t even manage to lie about it. It’s excruciating to see a person have to ask for the love they deserve, especially when they’ve spent their entire life emotionally alone and neglected. Old Dolio is desperate to get a taste of what that can feel like and she eventually does, but not from her parents. She finally leaves home and chooses to experience the things in life she has been taught were frivolous. Music, dancing, pancakes. The things that are actually essential.
Kajillionaire is a movie about how to love someone and how to accept love. For people who are lucky enough to have spent their whole lives freely giving and accepting affection, it seems like the easiest thing in the world to do. But for people like Old Dolio who have been conditioned to be alone and not expect anything from anyone, it’s like learning an alien language. A complete out-of-body experience. Wood’s Old Dolio is entirely unrecognizable as she moves between the harsh ways her parents taught her to live and the tenderness she craves, but cannot understand. Rodriguez’s performance as Melanie is the polar opposite of Wood’s. Melanie is pure warmth, giving love so freely and fully. It’s no wonder that Old Dolio is simultaneously drawn to her and repulsed by her.
Written and directed by July, Kajillionaire feels like it was made to show that it is possible for the most damaged people to change. Even with the parents and the lifestyle that Old Dolio knew, she is able to find that she is capable of giving and receiving love. She learns that cycles of destructive behavior can be broken and it is possible to live for joy.
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