Kajil­lion­aire – first look review

It’s 15 years since Miran­da July’s Me and You and Every­one We Know pre­miered at Sun­dance and eight since her sopho­more film The Future did the same, which means there’s a sort of poignan­cy to her third fea­ture also receiv­ing its cur­tain call here.

In the nine years between her last film and Kajil­lion­aire, July has turned her con­sid­er­able tal­ent and imag­i­na­tion to plen­ty of oth­er projects, includ­ing per­for­mance art, nov­el writ­ing and a won­der­ful act­ing turn in Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Made­line. Still, it’s a delight to have July back behind the cam­era, espe­cial­ly with a project as ten­der and fun­ny as this one, which cen­tres on an uncon­ven­tion­al fam­i­ly in grifters liv­ing in Los Angeles.

Robert (Richard Jenk­ins), Therese (Debra Winger) and their awk­ward daugh­ter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) reside in the dilap­i­dat­ed office of a bub­ble fac­to­ry, where each day they are forced to quell a com­i­cal leak of pink bub­bles, all the while attempt­ing to avoid their land­lord, to whom they owe three months of back-rent.

The family’s pri­ma­ry source of income is sneak­i­ly rob­bing a local post office via its PO box­es, but when Old Dolio wins a sweep­stake for a trip to New York, they come up with anoth­er grift involv­ing an insur­ance scam. This inad­ver­tent­ly intro­duces them to Melanie (Gina Rodrigeuz), a pep­py, infi­nite­ly more well-adjust­ed young woman who is intrigued by the bizarre fam­i­ly and their scheme.

Kajil­lion­aire undoubt­ed­ly belongs to Evan Rachel Wood, who per­forms Keaton-esque feats of phys­i­cal com­e­dy and low­ers her voice sev­er­al octaves to become the shy, dis­trust­ful Old Dolio, who is instant­ly sus­pi­cious of Melanie and irri­tat­ed with her par­ents for bring­ing a new woman into their tight-knit group. Yet it’s through Melanie that Old Dolio is final­ly able to step out­side of the world cre­at­ed for her by her par­ents and realise all she’s missed out on by being the Oliv­er Twist to their twin Fagins. Melanie is the first per­son to treat her with kind­ness, and although Old Dolio finds old habits hard to shake, Melanie is the glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

It feels passé to refer to the quirk­i­ness of July’s work (though it war­rants a chuck­le that Old Dolio’s ini­tials are ODD), so let’s instead con­cen­trate on the oth­er rich­es in this charm­ing film: the sense of acute lone­li­ness that haunts sun­ny Los Ange­les; the inevitably of being dis­ap­point­ed by your par­ents; the pecu­liar rit­u­als we per­form while try­ing to estab­lish our own identity.

July’s fas­ci­na­tion with per­for­mance plays into the plot, as char­ac­ters try on roles for them­selves, attempt­ing to eke out their place not only with­in famil­ial units but the wider world. For odd­balls and mis­fits with dis­agree­able rel­a­tives, Kajil­lion­aire is a keen­ly-observed exam­i­na­tion of such rela­tion­ships that has much in com­mon with July’s past work, as a sweet love sto­ry between two ini­tial­ly mis­matched indi­vid­u­als who find peace with each other.