Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Pat Boonnitipat
Starring: Putthipong Assaratanakul, Usha Seamkhum, Sarinrat Thomas, Sanya
Kunakorn
The arse-ache of mourning a deceased family member comes in sequences.
Chiefly, and there's no getting around it I'm afraid, there is the missing
of the person: alive one day, and then not alive the next, not alive
forever. It's bad. And so, here's some admin to keep you occupied; bank
accounts to close, pensions to claim, bills to cancel. So much for love,
regret, pain: the base truth of our everyday life is that we are
inextricably tied to a system dependent on figures, and transaction, and
money money money. So, within the grimly fiscal context of death, perhaps
the inevitable interaction with covetous relatives who have pound signs in
their eyes instead of tears (another practical aspect of mourning) is
understandable in this era of late capitalism?
In the case of How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Pat Boonnitipat's (writing duties shared with
Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn) gentle comedy-drama centred around the
prolonged death of an aged matriarch who has stomach cancer, the
grave-gold digging begins early, when, having heard of his nan's late
stage terminal diagnosis, failed video game streamer and college dropout M
(Putthipong "Billkin" Assaratanakul) deigns to ingratiate himself
with the dying woman in order to secure a chunk of that sweet inheritance.
What a guy (we are automatically expected to rub along with M and accept
his manipulation of an old woman as him being a lovable but misguided
little twerp). And it's not just M, either. As the eldest of a big family,
Mengju (Usha "Taew" Seamkhum) has other relatives sniffing around
her too; fawning over the increasingly frail woman, reigniting old debts,
or attempting to disabuse her of her dying wish to be buried in a massive
theme-park of a graveyard at exhaustive cost.
The scene is set for a potentially edgy black comedy concerning the (imho,
accurately portrayed) lengths with which rapacious kin will barter and
purloin over the just-about-still-breathing corpse of a supposedly beloved
family member. But what characterises
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is how colourfully
pleasant it all looks and how cushioned the storytelling is. Wikipedia
informs me that Boonnitipat created the film as an echo of individual
circumstances (to be respected) but the produced film has no personal
edge, and instead offers glossy surfaces reflecting reserved performances,
a Hallmark aesthetic (no shade) softening out soap opera drama (I tear up
at the end of Die Hard when bemused homophobe McClane
overcomes his aversion to male on male affection and gives Sergeant Al a
manly hug - I am an emotional Taurean through and through - yet
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies left me atypically
unmoved). With M's failed attempts to monetise playing COD, and his
cousin's apparent career as an OF girl, there is a sense of further
exploitative contexts within
How to Make a Million Before Grandma Dies, but the film doesn't really explore these avenues, instead focusing on
the would be heart-warming emergent relationship between M and Mengju.
I accept that there is perhaps a cultural barrier at work which I do not
understand, involving different approaches and attitudes to death within
different societies. In Britain, at least, the depiction of millennial M
living with his parents wouldn't be a source of familial shame as it is
here, just a weary fact of life. Certainly, the film makes material of
indexical markers, with smooth wide angles of the city and, in a further
example, M taking work as a street congee vendor. It is difficult to
imagine that cajoling a woman on her death bed to rearrange her will is a
cheerful aspect of Thai culture, though. As a harmless enough televisual
representation of Thailand and its familial hierarchies, there is enough
within How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies to provide
an easy escapism, albeit one which glides past the more challenging
implications of its narrative.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is in UK/ROI cinemas from December 26th.
