Review: Kajillionaire
Miranda July has garnered a reputation for celebrating the oddball and normalizing the abnormal. She might be parodied in an SNL sketch that over exaggerates the socially conscious artist. Kajillionaire is July’s third feature film and while it’s my first experience of her work, it was surprising to me to learn that this might be her most conventional film when compared to her other narrative features.
July clearly has a compelling visual style. Even the drab scenes on which the con artist family in Kajillionaire operate have a mesmerizing quality to them, but it’s hard to swallow the disorienting quirkiness of the film when all I could feel was a deep sadness for the dysfunction on display in this family’s life. While the film is punctuated with moments of tenderness, it’s almost as if we’re meant to marvel at small acts of kindness because the status quo is for all of the characters to act so horribly towards one another.
Enjoying the occasional quirky film is one thing, but accepting the unconventional while also being asked to go on an emotionally dark journey with characters you’re already struggling to connect with might be too much to ask.