Kajillionaire is a dramedy about a con-artist couple- Robert(Richard Jenkins) and Theresa(Debra Winger)- and their adult daughter Old Dolio(Evan Rachel Wood). The three barely subside with two-bit cons which seem to be rarely successful, they live in a delineated storefront office space that is overcome with bubbles from an adjacent factory twice a day. In order to make back rent they enact a scheme to collect travel insurance during the course of which they meet Melanie(Gina Rodriguez) who inexplicably becomes part of their grifts.
Wood gives a perfectly balanced performance between quirk and pathos, with an odd restless physicality and a dull low register vocal affect, she's able to play a Character while still conveying heartbreaking emotion. Jenkins and Winger are simply too awful to be tolerable, whether this was acting choice, direction, or the script they are painful to watch and absolutely bring down the film from eccentric interest to misery. Rodriguez brings her charm and magnetism to bear and it's effective, her chemistry with Wood is undeniable, but the character is so thinly drawn her involvement with this trio at any point strains credulity, she functions in a way like an inverted manic pixie dream girl, a simplification that doesn't do her talent, or the narrative potential of this set up, justice.
Particular and evocative production design, and a bizarre but effective score, make for a solid and interesting frame work with a couple very interesting shots and sequences- the pink bubbles glooping down in the trios "home", an extended sequence where the main characters pretend to be the family of a dying man while they search his house for his checkbook, Old Dolio dancing for the first time. But ultimately the sum is somewhat less than it's parts. It feels unfinished, a rough draft, the modulation of characters uneven, the story in and of itself not only bizarre but preposterous, the "happy" ending almost moot by the total grinding desperation of what proceeded it. Ambitious and intriguing but bleak to the point of pointlessness save for the award-worthy performance of Wood.
Currently available for rent on most VOD platforms.
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