Kajillionaire

Almost ten years after her breakthrough with The Future, performance artist, writer, and film director Miranda July returns with an absurdist satire that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Focusing on a family of con artists living in the margins of Los Angeles—a father (Richard Jenkins) obsessed with ‘the big one’ he is sure will destroy civilization, a mother (Debra Winger) as loveless as a stone, and a messed-up daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), the film’s focus, who goes by the name of ‘Old Dolio’—Kajillionaire depicts their day-to-day lives with an artist’s unerring eye, revealing just how weird life can be. When the ‘normal’ Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) enters the family’s life, Old Dolio is in for a shock… This is sui generis and definitely worth the ride.

‘July effectively immerses us in this defiantly unpredictable world. Her treatment of the material is narratively matter-of-fact, but visually precise: Like a good comedy director, she frames the characters’ weird interactions and movements in such a way as to make sure we get the gag, but she doesn’t dwell too long on any of it… 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.’—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture