With her latest film Kajillionaire, Miranda July has crafted the perfect film for our current political climate. Her first film in nearly a decade, it is centered on the Dynes family, a group of wily grifters whose only goal is to advance themselves financially through various schemes and scams. Though this isn’t the only way in which the unusually timely film seeks to reinterpret our reality as we know it — the film brilliantly paints a portrait of the sense of longing and alienation that occurs when isolated for an extended period of time (the isolation, in the case of this film, being trapped in an ambivalent family unit for nearly three decades).
Led by effervescent performances from Evan Rachel Wood and Gina Rodriguez, Kajillionaire is a cinematic evolution for July, conveying an overwhelming lust for life that is decidedly more positive than either of her other two cinematic offerings (2005’s Me and You and Everyone We Know and 2011’s The Future, respectively). The film follows a family of thieves who incorporate a young woman they meet on a plane into their grifting operation. With this film, July seeks to focus on the minutiae of the quirks of its characters, whether it be insert shots of Old Dolio’s (Evan Rachel Wood) fingers fidgeting while interacting with Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) for the first time, or the neck twitch that Teresa (Debra Winger), the matriarch of the family, exhibits, July loves pointing her camera at unusual people. Her goal in this is not to shame or mock, but to embrace, to cast a spotlight on those who would seemingly be ignored by much of greater society. Though she is deeply interested in these people, we never learn who they are or where they come from (save for a brief mention of Teresa and Robert (Richard Jenkins) having written for a Pennysaver magazine). July is more interested in the cosmic scale with which these people view the events of their own lives.
July equates the inner conflict of Old Dolio with seismic occurrences – referred to as “the big one” that will end civilization and, more importantly, kill Old Dolio – littering the greater Los Angeles area. One of the film’s most memorable moments involves Old Dolio and Melanie trapped in a convenience store bathroom, embracing one another as Old Dolio is convinced that the earthquake that has trapped them in the bathroom is going to kill them. In this fear of death comes the genesis of life, a chance for Old Dolio to finally discover who she really is, as well as the ability to find intimacy in the touch of another — an act we see her struggling with in the film’s opening sequence involving her attempt to scam a massage parlor out of money. This drive to survive makes the petty squabbles over commerce seen throughout much of the film seem trivial and July uses the film’s final scene to assert the point that money doesn’t matter when you’re drinking from the chalice of life.
July’s script keeps the dialogue playful, with a bubbly tone pervading much of the film even as it makes light of inherently grim subjects such as mortality and poverty. In the hands of a less capable filmmaker, this seeming lack of tact would seem obnoxious or naïve but July’s deft control of the tonal dial allows for the scenes involving characters dealing with their interior lives to be handled with the appropriate weight. July never seeks to dismiss the existential fears she’s exploring here, instead suggesting that we should take them head-on and learn from them so that we may grow as people.
With Kajillionaire, July has made a film imbued with a sensation that I’m sure many reading this can empathize with — independence cannot be attained by emotional or physical isolation, but rather must be found through embracing human nature’s inherent lust for life.
Kajillionaire is now playing in limited release and will be released to VOD platforms starting October 16th.
