by Sophie Terakes
Worth: $18.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Usha Seamkhum, Putthipong Assaratanakul, Sarinrat Thomas, Sanya Kunakorn, Pongsatorn Jongwilas and Duangporn Oapirat
Intro:
… a soul-stirring tale of love, loss and newfound understanding.
While the title of Pat Boonnitipat’s debut film is delightfully blunt, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is laden with subtle gestures and veiled motives. Set in the bustling, fragrant alleys of Bangkok’s Chinatown, the film follows a working-class Chinese-Thai family as they confront the news that their elderly matriarch, Amah (Usha Seamkhum), is terminally ill. Upon realising that Amah will likely leave her modest fortune to her favourite family member, her grandson M (Putthipong Assaratanakul) moves into her house to win her affection.
While the script is simple and understated, Pat’s cramped, brightly-patterned mise-en-scène speaks volumes. Certainly, the director has a flair for curated chaos, decorating the film with cluttered domestic tableaus carefully arranged to illuminate brewing alliances and old wounds. Early in the film, for instance, as the clan assembles for lunch, Amah’s daughter-in-law, Pinn (Duangporn Oapirat), boasts about the quality of the expensive steamed chicken she has brought. Pinn stands tall in the foreground, tending to the prosperous spread of oil-glistened food, while her comparatively poor sister-in-law, Chew (Sarinrat Thomas), cooks rice outside, her small figure hemmed in by the window frame. Here, the director masterfully (and subtly) highlights the class divide between Pinn and Chew through their comportment in the domestic space, rousing unspoken resentments with framing alone.
Pat’s use of props and staging reveals fissures, but it bares the family’s adoration for one another, too. As each member of the clan steadily learns to be more selfless, the film becomes textured with their small, banal acts of affection: while helping her dress, M buttons Amah’s blouse in the manner that she likes, M’s struggling uncle Soei (Pongsatorn Jongwilas) offers to repay the debt he owes his nephew, and Amah buys M a crisp new shirt as an apology for having long underestimated him. Though Amah’s expression in this scene is characteristically stoic, the neatly wrapped package in her hands brims with tenderness.
Through each of the film’s shambolic but carefully wrought frames, Pat crafts a soul-stirring tale of love, loss and newfound understanding. With compassion and sincerity, his camera captures a family of people who do not always say precisely what they mean but, via gestures, objects and gifts, find poignant ways of showing it.
