Have you ever let somebody scam you? I mean stood back and decided: “I know I’m being scammed, but this is so pathetic I’m going to let them get away with it.” Kajillionaire is story of people you might let get away with it. These are people for whom jail is an improvement.
Robert (Richard Jenkins), Theresa (Debra Winger), and Old Dolio –yes “Old Dolio” (Evan Rachel Wood) are a family of grifters. Their grifts are so small time, you want to cry. Their bread & butter is post office box theft, and yet they are not above selling fake watches, cashing coupons, or stealing checkbooks. The grift is so ingrained in mother and father that they named their daughter “Old Dolio” after a man who won the lottery in hopes that he would share with his namesake. He did not.
The family lives in the back of a cleaning solvent factory; soap bubbles overflow into their living space several times a day. The foreman charges them rent that they don’t pay. They lives on nickels and dimes; they would –quite honestly- make a better living by simply casing residential neighborhoods for discarded goods left on the curb and then selling them; perhaps they do. Kajillionaire focused entirely on the illegal stuff.
The saddest part of this trio is their matter-of-fact approach to grifting. It is their life; they know no other. The idea of employment is like a foreign concept. There is no happiness; there is only an endless series of cons on victims who don’t care enough to raise Hell. Old Dolio understands her role as prominent whenever a young or agile person is needed for a theft. She is slovenly, uneducated, and emotionally stunted. We feel sorry for her; maybe there was a child in there once, one with big eyes and an idea of what her future might be. The woman she’s become will end up in jail or a bag lady; there isn’t any stopping it. And Old Dolio has only the faintest recognition that hers isn’t a normal life.
Written and directed by Miranda July, Kajillionaire was fun for awhile, almost upbeat: “Here’s the story of some sad sack grifters and the 
really petty things they do to get by.” You laugh because it’s not you; it never will be you. You want them to succeed on some level because they are the scam artist so pathetic that you’re paying more for a performance than a crime. And then the film introduces a “normal” person, Melanie (Gina Rodriguez). I won’t say the film fell apart at this point, but –for me- Kajillionaire only worked within the grifting poverty bubble. Once Old Dolio starts to realize that her life is a pathetic mess, this film turns from ironic to sad.
I turned on Kajillionaire. I really did enjoy Act I, but by the end, I was happy to get it over with. The problem is the film introduced three forgettable mediocrities, people who are so ingrained in the small-time grift they’ve lost sight of anything else. The only one with a chance for redemption has the personality of a wet paper sack and the self-awareness of a slug … and all of that becomes increasingly clear once Miranda shows up. I’m sure other critics will laud this as a indie gem along the lines of Clockwatchers or One False Move. I, however, felt like the film went from a pleasure to a slog. By the end, I wish social services and the police arrived because that’s the only way these guys will eventually get a better life.
Here’s a family of two parents and a lass
Whose thievery barely qualifies as “harass”
A story of petty crime
Rating so small time
They can’t even bring themselves to steal some class
Rated R, 104 Minutes
Director: Miranda July
Writer: Miranda July
Genre: When humanity fails
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Empaths
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who need more substance
