Kajillionaire (2020)
Director: Miranda July
Screenwriter: Miranda July
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger, Gina Rodriguez
Miranda July’s Kajillionaire is a compact, idiosyncratic film that blends heist tropes, coming-of-age beats, and an unexpectedly tender love story. At its center is a deeply unconventional family of small-time con artists living in Los Angeles, and through them July examines how isolation, odd parenting choices, and the search for belonging shape identity.
The film follows Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), a young woman raised by two eccentric grifters, Robert and Theresa (Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger). Their home—situated next to a soap-bubble factory that periodically fills the halls with pink bubbles—sets the movie’s slightly surreal tone and acts as a visual joke about L.A. property and commercialism seeping into daily life. Robert and Theresa have deliberately denied Old Dolio a conventional childhood, training her for petty schemes and small cons rather than offering emotional warmth. The result is a heroine who moves through the world with a guarded, almost robotic stiffness, convinced that the family’s bizarre code of conduct is normal.
The plot pivots when Old Dolio wins a trip to New York from a mail-in sweepstake. The family quickly concocts a lost-luggage insurance scam to turn the prize into rent money. On the return flight they meet Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), an effusive, earnest woman who quickly inserts herself into their circle and volunteers to help make the scam more convincing. Melanie’s presence creates a new dynamic: she brings genuine warmth and curiosity into a household built on emotional scarcity. That warmth is what Old Dolio has never experienced and secretly craves.
Miranda July writes and directs with a consistent eye for odd details and human vulnerability. The film frequently plays like a farcical pantomime—Robert and Theresa are caricatured with broad, comic gestures—and much of the humor is visual. Jenkins embraces exaggerated facial expressions and physical quirks; Winger offers a peculiar limp and a blunt comic energy. Evan Rachel Wood, meanwhile, commits to Old Dolio’s awkward, Chaplinesque physicality: she is both comedic and heartbreakingly sincere. Gina Rodriguez softens the edges of the family with an effortless brightness; she becomes the catalyst for Old Dolio’s emotional awakening.
Underneath the comedy, Kajillionaire carries serious themes about identity and self-acceptance. July layers the story with subtext that resonates with queer experiences and the struggle to separate from a family’s restrictive worldview. Old Dolio’s isolation and the parents’ insistence on preparing for “the big one” create a claustrophobic atmosphere that feels like a metaphorical closet. Melanie’s unconditional acceptance allows Old Dolio to encounter an alternate path—one where small joys, like dancing or tiny pancakes, matter. When Melanie tells Old Dolio that “most happiness comes from dumb things,” it signals a fundamental shift: happiness can be ordinary, silly, and accessible, not earned only through schemes or survival tactics.
Structurally the film is adventurous: it starts as a quirky heist movie, drifts into a coming-of-age tale, and ultimately becomes a gentle romance. That genre fluidity may frustrate viewers expecting a single tone, but it is precisely this elasticity that allows July to explore character transformation without sentimentality. The film’s pacing and tonal shifts reflect July’s background as a multimedia artist—she is comfortable moving between whimsy and genuine emotional stakes.
Kajillionaire also functions as a character study of unconventional family bonds. Robert and Theresa’s brand of parenting—practical, transactional, and performative—has produced a daughter who has internalized a life-script that keeps her small. The arrival of an outsider who models warmth and curiosity reveals how fragile that script is and how easily it can be unlearned. The film suggests that leaving behind toxic family habits is possible and that alternative communities and relationships can offer refuge and growth.
Performances are the engine that carries the film’s oddball humor and tender moments. Jenkins and Winger create memorably strange, comic antagonists without turning them into one-note villains. Wood’s portrayal of Old Dolio is the emotional heart: awkward, stubborn, and finally willing to try new ways of being. Rodriguez provides a magnetic center, her sincerity balancing the film’s more surreal elements.
For viewers who appreciate indie films that resist tidy categorization, Kajillionaire is a rewarding, often moving experience. Its mixture of visual comedy, sharp character work, and subtle themes about identity and belonging makes it one of Miranda July’s most affecting films—an offbeat story that lingers long after the cons have been pulled and the bubbles have settled.
21/24
