Kajillionaire

Armut macht unsichtbar, andernfalls würde das Trio aus Robert (Jenkins), Theresa (Winger) und Old Dolio (Wood) auf den Straßen von Los Angeles auffallen wie eine Gruppe Außerirdische. Die drei sind eine Familie – Vater, Mutter, Tochter – und führen als Kleinbetrüger ein Leben ganz nach ihren eigenen Gesetzen. Ihre Tricks sind nicht immer erfolgreich, ihr Umgang miteinander ist gefühllos und hart. Bei einer ihrer Aktionen lernen sie Melanie (Rodriguez) kennen, deren handfeste, empathiefähige Normalität das eingeschliffene Familiengefüge auf unvorhersehbare Weise durcheinanderbringt. (Barbara Schweizerhof)

Miranda July is one the most innovative and versatile American cross-disciplinary artists working today. As versed in video and performance as fiction and cinema, July exemplifies a playful sense of movement, fabulation, the surrealism of daily life, and the uncanny. In her previous films, such as ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE (2005) and THE FUTURE (2011), human relationships take quirky, exhilarating turns, and identity, particularly when it comes to female protagonists, is always prone to doubt and reassessment.
July’s latest feature KAJILLIONAIRE once again centers on unconventional protagonists who come to question their intimate connections. Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins play petty swindlers down on their luck, who live in a bare office next to a bubble factory and barely scrape by from scams, such as stealing checks from the postal service. They’re helped by their nimble but socially ill-adapted daughter, Old Dolio, played with cool reserve by Evan Rachel Wood. Into this bizarre, emotionally stifled family, enters Melanie, a bubbly and earnest shopping-mall attendant, played by Gina Rodriguez, who proposes an audacious scam of her own. July mixes sardonic social critique with a blooming romance in a tale where California’s vacant high-tech landscapes meet industrial doom. (Ela Bittencourt)

Miranda July: ATLANTA (1996, K), THE AMATEURIST (1998, K), NEST OF TENS (2000, K), GETTING STRONGER EVERY DAY (2001, K), ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (2005), THE FUTURE (2011), SOMEBODY (2014, K)