Kajillionaire

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger, Gina Rodriguez
Directed by: Miranda July
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
2020

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A woman (Evan Rachel Wood) who was taught by her parents (Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger) to be a con artist starts questioning her purpose in life.

Review:

Tim: I tried to like Kajillionaire. The cast was impressive and it looked like a quirky, unique comedy. I wasn't familiar with writer/director Miranda July, but I was ready to see what she could deliver. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of nearly anything in this movie. It's original but poorly made. It doesn't dig deeply enough into its characters and by the time it gets around to any level of depth, the movie is over. It felt like a collection of decent ideas that never fully coagulated. They just kind of float around and move past you. I believe this is quite a bad movie.

The central idea should have worked. You have a con artist family, specifically focused on the daughter, who knows no other life than what her parents have taught her. They're unexpectedly abusive- withholding any kind of love or compassion. They're gaslighters, manipulators, liars to the core. They seem fine on the surface, but as the movie progresses, you see the extent of their deplorability. For all that, though, I never really understood them. Why are they this way? What led them to this life? They're so absurd in so many ways, yet the movie never helps us understand. It focuses on the daughter, but it's obvious why she's the ways he is- her parents are completely screwed up. It feels like the movie spends too much time on things that don't make much sense and not enough time on the things that really mattered. This dysfunctional family unit is thrown for a loop when they recruit a random girl they meet on a plane. I never fully believed this event. We don't learn enough about the character of Melanie (had to look her name up, no recollection) to have any idea why she'd spend more than five minutes with her family. The movie gives us a bit of her backstory, but it's not especially interesting or insightful. July's film is filled with this holes that really needed to be filled.

I really like the cast, but they are hurt by July's writing and direction. Richard Jenkins is a fantastic actor and his performance is good- he embraces the deplorable qualities of his character. He acts out what was on the page, but July's script doesn't do him too many favors. There's some nice moments were you can marvel at his talent, but they're not frequent enough to make the movie work. The same thing goes for Debra Winger. I haven't seen Winger in a film in 15 years, so I was quite excited to see she had a meaty role here. Winger gives a good performance- it's odd, unexpected and has memorable moments. This film's failure is not on her. Evan Rachel Wood gives a bizarre performance. It must have been fun for her to play a role so unlike what she's used to getting. I appreciated that Wood embraced this role and played against any expectations we might have had about her. It's an odd performance, again, limited by July. Wood is good, but I never felt all that interested in her character. Her monotone delivery is unique, but it gets boring. I lost interest in her character long before the movie ended. Gina Rodriguez gives one of the best performances of the film, as she's forced into the most "normal" role. I wasn't buying her character at the beginning, but as the film progresses, she becomes an ally for the audience and emerges as the heart of the film. Rodriguez is the one cast member who manages to work around the weaknesses of the script. It's such a weird feeling to so dislike a movie, but acknowledge Jenkins, Winger, Wood, and Rodriguez all give pretty good performances in it.

I feel a bit bad railing so much against July. I have nothing against her personality, I think she just delivered a bad film. It looks like she doesn't direct feature films very often, and I suspect I know why. I'm not sure who this film was supposed to be for, nor who would really enjoy it. Now, that being said, it has a 90% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes. Man, sometimes critics are the worst. Just because a film is different and quirky and marches to its own beat does not automatically make it a good movie. Case in point. I've never quite seen anything like Kajillionaire, nor do I ever want to again. July delivers a film that's unique and utterly boring. It's quirky in all the wrong places and never digs deeply enough into its subject matter. The critics are flat out wrong, this film sucks.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 4.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: You didn't enjoy this movie, not really (now I'm gaslighting you like the parents, sheesh)