Rianne Pictures
There’s an innocence to Miranda July’s Kajillionaire that makes it endearing, particularly within protagonist Old Dolio, played by Evan Rachel Wood. 26-year-old Old Dolio lives with her parents, Theresa and Robert, (played by Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) in the disused office space of the ambiguously named ‘Bubbles Inc.’ The room leaks pink foam, but “it leaks on a schedule” their landlord assures a concerned passerby. Neither Old Dolio nor her parents have a job – not in the traditional sense, anyway. They make their living by scamming, which is less of a job and more of a lifestyle.
Scamming was always Old Dolio’s fate: she was named after a homeless man who won the lottery – her parents hoped this act would make him put her in his will, but he spent all his money on experimental cancer treatment instead. “Old Dolio learnt to forge before she could write,” her father says proudly at one point. She’s been groomed from birth into the perfect scammer.
EMILY GARBUTT 