LFF 2020: Kajillionaire triumphantly rides a wave of its own tongue-in-cheek-ness

There’s an innocence to Miranda July’s Kajillionaire that makes it endearing, particularly within protagonist Old Dolio, played by Evan Rachel Wood. 26-year-old Old Dolio lives with her parents, Theresa and Robert, (played by Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) in the disused office space of the ambiguously named ‘Bubbles Inc.’ The room leaks pink foam, but “it leaks on a schedule” their landlord assures a concerned passerby. Neither Old Dolio nor her parents have a job – not in the traditional sense, anyway. They make their living by scamming, which is less of a job and more of a lifestyle.

Scamming was always Old Dolio’s fate: she was named after a homeless man who won the lottery – her parents hoped this act would make him put her in his will, but he spent all his money on experimental cancer treatment instead. “Old Dolio learnt to forge before she could write,” her father says proudly at one point. She’s been groomed from birth into the perfect scammer.

There’s also an innocence to the film’s repeated visual gags, a style of comedy that feels almost anachronistic in its simplicity and inoffensiveness – for example, Old Dolio dresses like the Robert Pattinson meme, all baggy clothing and bad posture. The film opens with her rolling and tumbling, Mission Impossible-style, into a post office, all to steal a bit of cash and a nice tie. 

When the post office catches onto the stunt and instals security cameras, she and her parents need a new plan to pay their overdue rent. Old Dolio comes up with a travel insurance scam – they will use tickets they won in a competition to fly to New York, then pretend to lose their baggage on the way back. It’s on their plane journey home that they meet Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), who’s seated next to Theresa and Robert. Melanie is somewhat of a litmus test for Old Dolio – she’s a glimpse into the world away from her dysfunctional parents; a realisation that the way they live is not how life has to be.

Kajillionaire is, ultimately, a film about what it means to love and be loved. But, It’s about the absence of love, too. “They’re my parents,” Old Dolio says when Melanie questions why she stays with them when they continue to use her for their own gain. “In what way?” Melanie asks. It’s a simple question, but a poignant one. “You’re addicted to them,” Melanie adds.

It’s the moments of surreal physical comedy punctuated by these surprising moments of hurt or tenderness that make this film work. Although Old Dolio and co.’s harebrained scams kept me engaged, it was the moments of emotion that had me thinking about the film even after it’d finished. Some critics have hit out at Kajillionaire for being too whimsical, too quirky, and maybe it is. It walks a careful line between sincerity and humour, but, for me, it works. I like a film that doesn’t take itself seriously, and Kajillionaire triumphantly rides a wave of its own tongue-in-cheek-ness.