Love Conquers Capitalism In ‘Kajillionaire’
Miranda July’s new movie is a very modern romantic comedy
I grew up with a friend who was genuinely rich. He lived in a mansion and vacationed in Europe and was gifted a new car when he turned 16.
Many years later, he and I went out to dinner with a group of friends. We all proceeded to get buzzed on cheap beer but he didn’t join us. When the bill came he offered to pay it on his credit card if we gave him cash. Everyone enthusiastically handed over everything they had. Wallets opened and twenties were pulled out and thrown on the table. The pile of cash before him looked like more money than what was on the tab. Afterward, I asked him how much he pocketed and he just smiled.
What I didn’t tell him was that I didn’t pitch in. I’m not proud of that, but it was just a harmless swindle between friends. Americans are bred to fight for a bite of the apple. We are taught to hustle and to haggle. It’s part of the culture and language. We watch movies about smooth criminals pulling off perfect heists. When someone buys something for a low price they brag, “It’s a steal!” A person who scores big without having to sweat for it is a bandit.
I am obsessed with money. I don’t want to be but I don't have a choice. When you live in a profit-hungry society, you are forced to hunt even when you have plenty to eat. I was raised to be honest and to put in an honest day’s work. I pay my bills on time. I don’t cheat on my taxes. I have a savings account, and in that account are retirement funds that will last me a month at most.
Our forefathers fought a king and won so that future generations could fight a banker and lose.
Deep down I know I’ll never become a kajillionaire and spend my days soaking worry-free in a hot tub. It’s too late to be born rich. And writing essays on the internet sure as hell isn’t the path to fortune. I’m not talented or disciplined enough to become a surgeon or a tech mogul. I don’t know what to do with myself, but the system knows exactly what to do with me—which is to keep me dreaming of dollar bills.
There are other ways to scrape by, of course, but I’d make a terrible con artist. The “con” in “con artist” is short for “confidence.” I wish I had confidence. The confidence of a prince or a golden boy. Maybe then I’d be able to charge everyone’s drinks on my card and then make out like a bandit. I’ve been able to muster courage when I’ve needed it but confidence is different. Confidence is the cheapest kind of faith. It’s doing a thing because you believe you’re blessed and cannot possibly fail. Courage is doubt. It’s doing a thing even though you may fail.
There have been a few times in my life when I had the courage to tell someone I loved them. One time, the person told me she didn’t love me back. That happens sometimes. But then there was that time a totally different person responded, “I love you too.”
Kajillionaire is a quirky romantic comedy about broken people, which is the best kind. Writer and director Miranda July’s newest movie is also a coming-of-age story and a grifter tale and a critique of the free market and a Greek tragedy about how family dooms us all but the movie ends with hope. It turns out love can conquer capitalism. But first, you have to open your heart and trust another flawed human being.
This is almost impossible for the main characters in Kajillionaire, a trio of petty thieves and pickpockets who only open wallets. If capitalism were made flesh, it would take the form of July’s characters in this funny, sad, and surreal movie. (Thanks to Kajillionaire, I will always associate the breakdown of society with sheets of frothing pink bubbles sliding down walls.)
Evan Rachel Wood stars as Old Dolio, a 26-year-old woman raised by her con artist parents from birth to swindle. Her oddball name tells the story: Her mom and dad buttered up a hobo flush with cash named Old Dolio by naming their newborn daughter after him. The hope was that he’d be so moved by the honor he’d share the windfall. He didn’t, and they didn’t bother to rename their baby girl.
Old Dolio’s folks didn’t give her a new name because they have bigger fish to fry. They’re not “false, fakey people.” They’re honest about who they are and what they want, which is whatever you have. Robert and Theresa Dyne, played by Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger, are small bean hustlers who live their lives scheme to scheme. Baby Boomer-aged leeches who feed on whatever’s closest, even if it’s their own kin. They don’t have time to coddle a little girl. To give her attention, or call her Sarah or Donna or Carol. They gotta get paid, by hook or by crook.
Her parents are devoted members of the church of want. I think it’s easy to laugh at outcasts like Robert and Theresa, but the truth is they are shockingly realistic portrayals of average Americans if you strip away cumbersome virtues like generosity — panicked about bills, defiantly self-centered, and seduced by luxuries they can’t afford.
They’re also two of the most terrifying villains I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. They’re a cross between The Artful Dodger and the desperate real estate salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross. Speaking of villains: Wood’s character, the Dyne’s only child, is like Batman’s masked nemesis Bane, only instead of being born in and molded by the darkness, she was born in and molded by petty larceny. She was raised by dogs to eat other dogs.
As Robert, veteran character actor Jenkins toggles between a charming buffoon and dead-eyed shark with ease. But it’s Winger who turns in the movie’s most chilling performance as the quiet, coiled power behind the throne, who sports a mysterious limp that is probably just another long con.
Winger’s Theresa also never held her daughter as a baby, or a child, or as an adult. Woods’ performance is heartbreaking and hilarious. Her Old Dolio wears baggy tracksuits and talks in a low baritone and has developed her own style of security camera-avoiding Parkour. She doesn’t know how to be vulnerable because she has never experienced it. Old Dolio lacks self-awareness but she also lacks world-awareness. Rats in a maze don’t know they’re rats in a maze, you know?
Enter optometrist assistant Melanie, brought to life by an incandescent Gina Rodriguez. Melanie is lonely. Her mom is a long-distance voice on the phone. She’s also a firecracker. She meets Old Dolio’s crime family on a return flight to L.A. from New York and talks her way into being a part of their luggage insurance scam that would pay off $1,500 in back rent.
This is Melanie’s most successful con. She’s just a lost soul with no talent for flimflammery who wants to connect with another human being. Old Dolio has the same emptiness inside of her she discovers early on in the movie when she poses as a pregnant woman at a court-mandated “positive parenting” class for $20. During the class, she wakes up to the neglect she’s endured her whole life.
At first, Old Dolio is threatened by Melanie’s sudden inclusion in the family business, including a plot to skim what can be skimmed from a former friendly patient of Melanie’s boss who happens to be on his deathbed. The plan is to pop on by and say hello and grab the grabbable. The mark invites them in from his room and asks his visitors for a favor: Make the noises of life. The sounds of a home. The clatter and chatter of people who love each other. Robert and Theresa immediately oblige the guy and speed him along because it’s easier to remove the rings of a dead man than a live one. The scene is haunting and proves that greed can be compassionate if there’s something in it for greed.
I don’t want to spoil the very end of Miranda July’s movie, but Old Dolio evolves, which is a choice we all get to make from time to time. In Kajilloinaire, she finds love only after rejecting a suffocating, manipulative family who demandsed she not change. Then she simply opened her heart and waited for someone to steal it.
