{"id":21324,"date":"2020-09-24T16:58:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T23:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=21324"},"modified":"2020-09-24T16:58:06","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T23:58:06","slug":"kajillionaire-is-excessively-eccentric-but-has-some-engaging-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=21324","title":{"rendered":"KAJILLIONAIRE is Excessively Eccentric, But Has Some Engaging Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/24_0007_B-merged.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15337\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Focus Features is releasing&nbsp;KAJILLIONAIRE&nbsp;on\nSeptember 25th theatrically in select cities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We all have issues with members of our family now and again.\nHowever, those who feel a little trapped and constrained by their brood likely\nhave nothing on the outlandish criminal clan featured in <em>Kajillionare<\/em>.\nThis drama\/comedy focuses on one particular group member and her frustrating\nand surreal experiences with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Kajillionaire-family-dollar-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21325\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Old Dolio Dyne (Evan Rachel Wood) is a woman living with her\nemotionally icy parents Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger).\nThey\u2019re a poor family residing in an abandoned office area of soap suds factory,\npaying under-the-table rent and eking out a few bucks via a series of\nsmall-time scams. After falling behind on their payments, the family encounter Melanie\nWhitacre (Gina Rodriguez), a woman curious about their peculiar lifestyle. Flattered,\nRobert and Theresa take Melanie in, hoping she can help them pull off their\nbiggest con yet. However, Old Dolio begins to feel jealous when her parents\nfawn over this new arrival. She ultimately wonders if it might be time to\nsearch for her own identity and break free from her parent\u2019s controlling grasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is funny to see the family\u2019s odd makeshift home in an\nempty office and its various issues, particularly the large soap suds that seep\nthrough the walls from the attached factory (which is what caused the owner to shut\ndown the area in the first place). Some of the scams are amusing to witness as\nwell, including an overly elaborate lost luggage scheme that requires the\nfamily to travel great distances via airplane and never actually enjoy their\ndestination. Old Dolia\u2019s child-like behavior is often bizarre to watch, but she\nis an easy character to sympathize with since her family exudes extreme dysfunction\nin just about every scene. And despite being generally awful people, Robert and\nTheresa (well-played by Jenkins and Winger) do occasionally deliver a funny\nobservation or comment on their various plots.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Kajillionaire-at-house-1024x625.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21328\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the film is well-performed and has a nice message\nabout an awkward woman in arrested development learning to break away from her maladjusted\nfamily and find a new life, it is aggressively quirky and filled with extreme and\nexaggerated behavior. That means that your enjoyment of the feature may depend\non whether or not you share a similar and very particular sense of humor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While some of the scams were amusing to this reviewer, not all\nof the repetitive schemes make an impression. A few of the shakedowns are so\ndeeply flawed and the behavior of the leads so witless, that it seems hard to\nbelieve that family who have been doing this for decades haven\u2019t improved their\ntechniques. Melanie provides a much-needed bit of normality and the movie does\nexplain her rationale for wanting to join the clan, but given just how odd these\nrip-off artists are, it still comes across as a stretch. It also takes an\nawfully long time for Old Dolio and her parents to finally begin turning on one\nanother. Still, when the movie switches gears and focuses in on the conflict,\ndrama and deceit between the leads, the performers do get the opportunity to\nshine a little more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Kajillionaire-walk-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21327\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The exceptional cast do create some amusing moments in <em>Kajillionaire<\/em>,\nbut this reviewer will admit that he doesn\u2019t really share the same sense of\nhumor as the filmmakers, and its strong eccentricities often distance one from\nthe characters, instead of pulling them into this very weird world. The movie\nends up stealing a laugh or two and delivering a few compelling moments, but by\nthe end credits the final haul doesn\u2019t feel as weighty or impressive as it could\nhave been. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Focus Features is releasing&nbsp;KAJILLIONAIRE&nbsp;on September 25th theatrically in select cities. We all have issues with members of our family now and again. However, those who feel a little trapped and constrained by their brood likely have nothing on the outlandish criminal clan featured in Kajillionare. This drama\/comedy focuses on one particular group member and her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[198,4660,4750,5534,6251,6637,7120,7283,8327,11419,11420,11421,11422,16537,16996,17737],"class_list":["post-21324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-198","tag-comedy","tag-cons","tag-debra-winger","tag-drama","tag-dysfunctional","tag-evan-rachel-wood","tag-family","tag-gina-rodriguez","tag-kajillionaire","tag-kajillionaire-film-review","tag-kajillionaire-movie-review","tag-kajillionaire-review","tag-quirky","tag-richard-jenkins","tag-scams"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}