Kajillionaire

FINAL SHOW THURSDAY

TUE-THU 7:30

(USA / 2020 / Directed by Miranda July)

Author, actor, sculptor, and multimedia performance artist Miranda July’s Kajillionaire is her third feature film (Me and You and Everyone We Know, The Future), and not insignificantly her first after becoming a mother. Following a clan of small-time scam artists, it playfully braids together questions about what happens when parents don’t act like parents and when children are forced to grow up too fast.

For 26 years, Robert and Theresa Dyne (Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger) have treated their daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), less as a child than as a compulsory participant in their money-making schemes. A gloomy young woman with Cousin Itt’s hair and Eeyore’s soul, their daughter’s favorite outfit is a lumpy green tracksuit that she wears constantly. When her parents randomly befriend a stranger, Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), she turns out to be Old Dolio’s opposite: charming, gregarious, eager to talk about herself and to find out more about her new acquaintances. Their new friend, it turns out, has a fondness for heist movies and a dissembling streak, and before long she’s happily joining the Dynes in their harebrained schemes and even concocting a few of her own. A bare-bones synopsis hardly captures the pointillistic touches and emotional power of this film, where every detail is both a plot point that shouldn’t be spoiled and a giddy surprise that’s wonderous to experience. 

R / 1hr 46 mins