It’s hard to imagine anyone other than American independent filmmaker and artist Miranda July could’ve conceived of Kajillionaire.
An oddball heist movie about a family of small-time grifters, it stars Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger in a tender story that parses the complexities of family and finding love in unsuspecting scenarios.
Wood plays Old Dolio, the grown-up daughter of two imposing parents, her sense of self in arrested development. No one is going after the Pink Panther diamond, rather they’re trying to make rent in their illegally occupied home where foam leaks from the ceilings at scheduled intervals.
Everything changes for the trio of scammers when they meet Rodriguez’s Melanie, who wants in on the group’s undertakings, and Old Dolio has to confront the transactional relationship she has with her parents.
It’s a movie that sneaks up on you, as it slowly shows its hand – before you know it, you’re in for the whole ride.
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Kajillionaire is July’s third movie following Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future, the former of which won the Camera d’Or prize at Cannes in 2005, which is given to the best directorial debut in competition.
But her original sensibilities aren’t limited to the cinema screen – July is also a renowned artist who works across many creative mediums including live performance, writing, music, digital art, sculptures and more.
No matter the form, there’s a through line of emotional interrogation in her work that is inquisitive, beguiling and revelatory – characteristics layered through Kajillionaire.
July talked to news.com.au about Kajillionaire and the personal discovery it entailed, casting Evan Rachel Wood and what an art experience might look like in the post-pandemic world.
Kajillionaire is such an interesting idea and really unconventional for a heist movie. There are no diamond thefts, instead it’s an intimate, family driven story. What were your touch points and inspirations? What were you thinking about when you were developing this concept?
I did watch the Mission: Impossible TV show a lot as a kid, so it wasn’t like a foreign language to me. I knew I had that in my back pocket but, of course, Mission: Impossible never had themes that were relevant to me, especially as a little girl.
It was a great pleasure to come up with the scams and have them be incredibly low stakes. It was only when I got to the end, I suddenly realised this is about some pretty heavy family stuff that I never would have willingly gone towards.
I thought maybe that will be the ride of the movie for the audience too.
At first I didn’t know where it was going and then when some of the more confessional elements came out, it was actually quite heartbreaking. You’ve said previously that female filmmakers are often asked, ‘Is this autobiographical?’ as if women can’t conceive of their own fully formed worlds. But that particularly aspect of the story, it sounds like maybe you did draw on something for that?
Not in a conscious way. It’s not my family, Old Dolio is not me. But if I can find the right fictional vehicle, I find that all my feelings come out. They just don’t come out in a literal way. It’s like if you knew you were talking in code then you could just say anything you wanted.
So, I have to have the perfect code and then I can be really free. To be honest, it’s only now with the film coming out that it’s kind of hitting me what it’s really about. I was just talking with my brother yesterday actually about that.
What was his reaction to the film?
He understands the code. He’s the only one who does.
To me, Kajillionaire is about the failures of parenting and that generational divide, but it’s also a bit of a stealthy love story.
Very much so and that made me happy. It’s almost like you fall in love with these characters. I put Old Dolio through so much that on some level I just really wanted her to get to have that at the end. I needed that for her.
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Old Dolio is such a specific kind of character so you would need a very specific kind of actor who could play someone who with a restrained presence but then have that moment of catharsis and joy and then back to heartbreak. Tell me about casting Evan Rachel Wood.
I’ve watched her for years and was very blown away by her. I had no idea who she really was until I met with her and was so excited after that first dinner with her.
I think she would say herself that she has an androgyny or just this duality, a masculine and feminine thing and that there aren’t a lot of roles for her. And I saw that. I knew she was bisexual and I’ve known people who have date her so I knew all that was real and not a reach but it went much deeper than I realised.
Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger playing the parents, who do and say awful things, but they have such a warmth to their presence. Was that something you were deliberately looking for in your actors?
Especially with Richard’s character, we have to believe in him enough that he can kind of break our heart along with Old Dolio. I like that I’m building on this long history of having trusted this character, having trusted this actor.
For him to be as shifty as he is, you almost can’t believe it and that’s right for this kind of gaslighting.
Then Debra is just such a deep soul. I feel like any part she’s ever played, she’s added a basement to it that probably was not in the script and she did that here too.
What was the decision to not be in the film yourself, given you were in your previous two?
There was no woman my age in the script. I thought of the idea and kind of fell in love with it. It was only two days in when that hit me. I was like, ‘hold on, I’m not in my 20s, I’m not in my 60s, I can’t [be in this].’ And it was fine because my next thought was ‘Ooh, I get to cast all these women’, which I had never been able to do before.
You work in these other art forms, such as writing, that is very solitary. The process of filmmaking is so much more collaborative. Is it east for you to pivot to this team environment where you have to almost give up control of certain aspects?
If I thought of it like that it would be very hard. I always think of it as now I finally have at my disposal people who have all these skills that I don’t have who can help me take my thing even further. I can’t make that bubble wall but now I have the budget to pay these effects people.
It’s like a dream for me, it’s like having superpowers or something. I love all the parts of it. I love the production side, I love the costumes. Coming from a place where most of my work is, as you said, alone, it feels kind of like a holiday, like I’m cheating because I don’t have to be at my desk.
Because you work in some many art forms and some of them are communal experiences, whether it’s a live performance, sitting together in a cinema or milling together in a gallery, once we emerge from the pandemic, do you think that culture will have irrevocably changed or will it return to some form of normal in how we experience art?
I think both ends. I did something last night where everyone got tested first and we came together for this ritual. I was thinking, ‘how would this have happened before?’ We all cared so much to be together that we all were tested and then just savoured our time together.
That’s a way that I think coming together might be more meaningful. Then also our time online – we’re finally figuring out what to do with these tools and that they’re actually not just to waste time with. There are real advantages.
(Interview edited for clarity and length)
Kajillionaire is in cinemas now (except Victoria)
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2020-10-25 04:56:46Z
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