Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) has only known peculiarity – named after a homeless man who came into a large fortune, her life has been anything but conventional. It doesn’t help that her parents (Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger) have made a living as con artists, with their livelihood coming in fleecing any unsuspecting victim, who normally are on the receiving end of their absurd (and often pointless) attempts to make a quick buck. As a result, Old Dolio hasn’t had the exposure to the world that many other young women had, and for twenty-six years has only known the world of living on the margins and taking advantage of anyone who will be gullible enough to fall for the family’s schemes. This changes with the arrival of Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), a street-smart young woman who is the antithesis of Old Dolio – she’s upbeat, resourceful and engaging, and instantly wins the adoration of the two older criminals, who find her to be a breath of fresh air, and take her on as a surrogate daughter. Coming from a relatively impoverished background herself, Melanie jumps at the opportunity to work with these charming but slightly strange people, who teach her the various creative ways she can get some fast money, which often involves taking advantage of the elderly and otherwise vulnerable, who the characters tend to see more as objects than individuals, with the exception of Old Dolio, who tends to look at them in a radically different way, and as a result finds herself becoming incredibly disillusioned with the life she was born into. The family dynamic gradually changes, and the only person who doesn’t benefit is Old Dolio, who is left to make her own way in a world she simply does not understand, and most likely will never find a comfortable place to settle in.

Miranda July is an enigmatic artist, someone whose entire career has been filled with oddities and contradictions, which have only served to make her even more of a fascinating figure. Her third feature film is Kajillionaire, the irreverent dark comedy that once again sees the director looking at individuals on the fringes of society, and who are existing outside a version of the world we can recognize, while still being unmistakably human in both theory and execution. July has quite frankly never been someone interested in playing by the rules – her films are offbeat, disorienting and often impenetrable – and like both Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future, this film has a strange premise that isn’t made any easier by a stream-of-consciousness style that hints at a plethora of other ideas that don’t always manifest in the way we expect them to. Kajillionaire is certainly an acquired taste, as is almost par for the course when discussing July’s work as a director – but what it lacks in lucidity it more than makes up for in sheer ambition, with the director’s insistence on penetrating the fabric of social order once again being prominent, and immediately situating this as one of the year’s most profoundly moving films, one that often takes a few leisurely strolls through the realm of truly unhinged absurdism, but emerges as a triumphant metaphysical comedy that has more to say about us than many works would even dare. It doesn’t have a shortage of brilliant moments, and while her comedic stylings may not appeal to everyone, July’s work is built on a foundation of looking deeper into our collective souls and deriving complex emotions from the most unexpected sources – and all this adds up to the dynamic bewilderment that is Kajillionaire, and we’re all the more fortunate for having experienced it firsthand.

What tends to be most prominent about July’s work is that they never end up being quite what they’re marketed as, but instead of being misleading, they’re rather more complex than one would think based on a cursory glance. Kajillionaire seems like a quirky crime comedy about a group of con artists engaged in some small-scale heists, almost as if July was trying to make a smaller-scale version of the Oceans Eleven franchise (which is even mentioned directly in this film). For the most part, this is true, since most of the narrative does focus on the main characters engaging in some sordid activities that will help them earn some very easy money. However, looking deeper, we see how this side of the story isn’t actually all that important to film as a whole, since Kajillionaire is a film about family more than anything else. From the first moment, we’re introduced to the character of Old Dolio, who is an aimless young woman yearning to find her place in the world, especially since she has never known what it means to have a family. Granted, she does have her parents who did raise her, but they were more focused on educating her in their criminal schemes than they were giving her the love and attention every individual needs in their development. In this regard, Kajillionaire has some truly stunning moments where July comments on some profound issues – midway through the film, there’s a scene where the family infiltrates the home of an old man who is waiting to die, having lost all purpose for living as a result of his children moving away and being too busy to see him. Old Dolio has a tender moment with him – she realizes that he is an incredibly lonely person, and for just a fleeting second, she feels a real human connection. Contrast this with her perpetual attempts to connect with her parents, who rebuff every sign of affection, and we gradually come to understand where the director was heading with this film.

Kajillionaire is a film about individuality, which it explores through the guise of commenting on this family dynamic. Positioning a character like Old Dolio at the core was a risky decision on July’s part – by all accounts, she should be a very unlikable character, with her immense awkwardness and inability to adhere to social conventions making her a truly annoying individual, but only by design, since everything that goes into her creation speaks directly to the sense of the film trying to find some balance between the outrageous comic premise, and the more intimate explorations of the psychology of these characters. Each one of the protagonists is constructed as a complex, nuanced individual, and their particular characteristics are perfectly calibrated to both the tone of the film, and the underlying melancholy that is so distinctive of July’s work. It also helps significantly that the parts are occupied by some very impressive actors, who surrender themselves to the director’s strange directorial vision, and instead find the gravitas in a story that feels tailor-made to each of them. Evan Rachel Wood is absolutely delightful as Old Dolio, turning in a performance that is brimming with complexity and abstract charm, where every decision she makes (and trust me, she made some bold choices here) feeling so essential to telling this story. She’s joined by the terrific Richard Jenkins, an actor whose name has become synonymous with reliability, and the iconic Debra Winger, who is giving one of her most interesting performances of recent years (and independent cinema has always done so well in reviving dormant careers of actors who fell out of favour for one reason or another). Each of these characters are so compelling, being coloured in with various shades of offbeat humour and unmistakably human qualities, it creates a surreal balance between the two that truly gives the film its stark but fascinating tone, and makes it almost entirely worth watching on the strengths of these performances – and the elements that they represent – alone.

It almost goes without saying that Kajillionaire isn’t the entry into the mainstream that some expected for July – very few filmmakers seem so actively against the idea of embracing convention quite like her, with her modus operandi almost consistently being to subvert expectations and go her own direction, even if it creates something of a disconcerting experience. As a result, her films are often quite puzzling, and this is certainly not an exception – so it only makes sense that Kajillionaire will appeal mostly to those who are already attuned to her particular brand of weirdness, where awkward characters run rampant, internal battles between social norms and one’s individuality are persistent, and the general message is that the world doesn’t quite work in the way we expect it to. It’s a fascinating portrait of people on the edges of society and sanity, and July weaves together some incredible concepts that may feel oddly-placed at first, but begin to make some sense when we see precisely what she is planning to do with them. The emotional payoff towards the end of the film is unexpected but absolutely worth the wait – we can’t anticipate the various directions this film will go (part of its brilliance is its refusal to follow the rules – it is almost defiantly against the tropes that govern the genre), and while some of the subplots may appear to come out of nowhere, and disappear even faster, it all builds to a hauntingly beautiful crescendo that manages to single-handedly comment on a wide array of issues without ever becoming heavyhanded. Ultimately, Kajillionaire isn’t July’s masterpiece, but rather another entry into her wide-ranging, multi-dimensional expression of artistic angst and curiosity, which has stretched across nearly every conceivable medium, and finds itself so poignantly represented here, in a film that seems to truly value the notion of attaining brilliance requires an artist to, more than anything else, be themselves and make the kind of art they want to see represented – and for all her flaws as a filmmaker, July has always remained as true to herself as possible, even when making something as abstract as Kajillionaire, which is a wonderfully unhinged comedy that takes the viewer on a journey and still manages to find the time to make some profound statements along the way.