Kajillionaire

Richard Jenkins. One of the most likable actors in Hollywood. When he appears onscreen you smile, you know he's going to be playing someone innately decent and even if it's one of his rare nasty appearances you still know he'll still be enjoyable. Then Kajillionaire, the new drama from Miranda July rocks up and ruins all your preconceived notions about him. 

Old Dolio Dyne (Evan Rachel Wood) has never known tenderness in her life. She's nothing more than business partner to her grifter parents Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger), used only as the youthful, trustworthy face in their scams. Scams that barely keep them afloat as they eke out a miserable existence on the side streets of LA. 3 months worth of overdue rent has them in trouble and to get the money they come up with a scam that's big time by their standards - pretend to lose their luggage and use travel insurance to get reimbursed. It's also a move that brings Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) into their world. Melanie and Old Dolio are polar opposites, one exuberant and full of joie de vivre and the other introverted, monotone and hiding behind a wall of hair. When 3 becomes 4 the dynamics of the Dyne family change forever.

A lot of people are going to hate this film. It's weird, cringy, seemingly aimless, full of self conscious tics and quirkiness. These are also the things that will make others love it. July's take on the con artist movie breathes a new lease of life into an old tale. There's no big score here but at the end you'll be smiling from ear to ear when people you've come to care about over the last 100 minutes realise there's far more to life than the hunt for green. It's tough watching them coming to terms with the fact that they've been caught in the long con all their lives. At a class Old Dolio takes to earn social welfare she watches a video of a newborn baby bonding with it's mother and it's the start of her realisation. When she sees how people react to the story of how she got her name it's a revelation. When you finally get to a stolen moment at a supermarket checkout you'll be grinning like a fool.

Evan Rachel Wood is immense as Old Dolio. A lifetime's worth of misery is etched into her demeanour. Her parents have crushed her spirit, human interaction is a mystery to her. A free massage is the worst thing in the world in her mind. Yet despite it all Wood drags humour from her situation and her skill with physical comedy is just *chef's kiss*. Playing off her are Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger as the parents you'll love to hate. Self absorbed arseholes, they live for money, finding no problem with ripping off dying oap's or gullible salesmen, they're a pair you'll want to see burn but this film deals with them in a manner that's far more satisfying than that. As Melanie, Gina Rodriguez has a tougher job, initially presenting as an airhead but slowly you realise there's far more to her than meets the eye and thankfully her character doesn't just exist to gum up the Dyne family engine, no, she's another victim of a city that swallows up everything put in front of it.

Los Angeles is the 5th character in this film. It's a horrible place at the best of times, built on empty promises and disposable business relationships and Kajillionaire mirrors it with the Dyne family, all washed out joyless streets and periodic earthquake rumbles to keep them on their toes. It's during one of these quakes that revelations comes spilling forth and a main character comes to life in a way that will have you alternating between watching through your fingers and laughter. Despite the potential darkness of the story there's a lot of laughs here. The avoidance of a landlord, a halfhearted kinda sorta parkour technique, a man with no emotional filter, the Dyne's exceedingly bizarre living circumstances. It's a blend of comedy and drama that helps us peer into the parts of life happening behind doors we'd pass in the street without even noticing, a look at the inner lives of the disenfranchised and forgotten. It's great.

Kajillionaire is streaming online now. It's really worth your time.