Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger are a family of grifters in this bizarre crime comedy-drama from Miranda July (The Future).
Scamming their way through the world one lousy con at a time, Robert and Theresa Dyne (Jenkins and Winger) subsist on petty scams and frauds, using their daughter Old Dolio (Wood) as an accomplice. Old Dolio (yes, "Old Dolio") hasn't known any other life, but this drastically changes after a chance encounter with another young woman (Gina Rodriguez) sees someone new enter their world and shake things up.
LessMiranda July’s bizarre crime caper comedy-drama flew under the radar, but it’s one of 2020’s best. Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger shine as a family of grifters, with Wood particularly great as Old Dolio - yes, “Old Dolio”.
90%207 reviews
The chemistry between Rodriguez and Wood is undeniable, and Rodriguez’s more naturalistic performance balances out her costar’s affected shuffling and deep, gravely monotone. Wood’s performance is sensitive, but it’s also silly at times.
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In the end, Kajillionaire is less about the con than it is the connection, and we’re all the richer as a result.
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What’s unusual about Kajillionaire, and what makes it July’s most absorbing film to date, is that you can feel her testing and challenging her own aptitude for whimsy.
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Jenkins and a nearly unrecognizable Winger make the most of their small monsters, peeling back layers of callousness and calculation to hint at the messier motivations underneath.
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July’s best and most mature work to date, the often hilarious and gradually heartbreaking Kajillionaire.
Full reviewJuly’s aesthetic imagination is inseparable from her empathetic curiosity and emotional urgency; it tempers a howl of anguish at a world of pain into a kind of cinematic music that unfolds it in nuanced detail and extends a hand of consolation, even offers a note of hope.
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It is leaps and bounds above the average boring status quo comedies, and it is exceptionally well-crafted.
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July – and her performers – find humanity lurking within their quirky oddballs. There’s also plenty of humor to be had, mostly from Wood’s deadpan delivery.
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A beautifully bizarre film whose considerable strangeness allows for sharp observations about family, loneliness and the terror of emotional intimacy, Kajillionaire is further proof of writer-director Miranda July’s ability to bend reality to her will.
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July’s style is at once cerebral and irreverent, but “Kajillionaire” doesn’t always find the most satisfying way to juggle those dueling tones.
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July takes these weird, desperate characters and gives their lives a couple of cosmic twists that serve both to clarify her vision and to expand it. This might be her best film yet.
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Kajillionaire is available to stream in New Zealand now on Google Play and Prime Video and Apple TV.
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