"Most people want to be kajillionaires. That's the dream." But how does one become a kajillionaire, you ask? Well, in the case of the Dyne family, it's through grifting.
Written and directed by Miranda July and starring Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Richard Jenkins, and Debra Winger, Focus Features' latest release Kajillionaire tells the dark and hilariously bizarre story of a small family of swindlers trying to make their way to fortune. Not from hard honest work, but from petty theft and scams. Though 26-year-old Old Dolio (Wood) is tired of living as a con artist with her parents (Jenkins and Winger), it's the only life she knows...until the Dynes start working with a new girl named Melanie (Rodriguez) and an unexpectedly sweet bond starts to bloom.
PRIDE sat down with Evan, Gina, and Miranda to talk about Kajillionaire's touching queer romance, found family, and more!
"One of the things I absolutely loved about this movie that really made me emotional was the fact that there was that element, and there was a love story in the film, but the film is not a queer love story. They just happen to be queer," Evan told PRIDE. "It's never talked about. Gender is never discussed, sexuality is never discussed. It just is. And that in itself is the statement."
She continued:
"I think it's important to have films about being queer and to show the history and things like that and to show the struggle, but it's also important just to have queer characters and have that not be what the movie is about. And I absolutely adored that."
"I think it was an opportunity to remind myself of how lucky I am for those human connections that I've made that have saved me because that's ultimately what this joining of these two people are," Gina said about the connection between her and Evan's characters. "They're saving each other from where they were, the stagnancy that they both felt like they were on pause in life, and they weren't growing in a way that they desired and longed for. And when they found one another, there was this filling of void and spaces, and it made me reflect on the love I have in my life and all the familial love, but also the found love, the love that has helped me through my journey, the love that saved me when my family couldn't."
Kajillionaire is now playing in select theaters!
