Gosh! I just realized that it’s been nearly two years since my last film review! If readers didn’t know better, they would think I’ve stopped watching films for just as long.
That’s untrue of course. I’ve kept up with a good amount of watching films and TV series in all this time. I just never got around to reviewing them here.
Until now.
Here’s hoping I won’t take another two years to write my next film review!
The film I want to talk about was one I watched with my wife and kids four nights ago, but which had already been seen by millions since its debut last September.
Film Synopsis (adapted from Guardian News)
Thai television director Pat Boonnitipat makes his feature film debut set mostly in Chinatown, Bangkok.
The story is about Menju, a widow who has accepted her terminal cancer with unsentimental calm. But she is well aware her grownup children — uptight stockbroker eldest son Kiang, hard-working daughter Sew and boozy gambling addict youngest son Soei — are at loggerheads over her assets when she departs.
But the real protagonist in this film is actually M (Putthipong Assaratanakul), Sew’s son.
M is a laid-back twentysomething-year-old guy living at home, who thought that live streaming his game-play action could be monetized for online subscriber fans and bring in loads of cash. No such luck. But he is fascinated by his cousin Mui who has just been left a fortune by her grandfather whom she expertly nursed throughout the final days of his illness. (Dressing as a sexy nurse, Mui also makes big money through her OnlyFans account)
Mui advises M that if he wants to follow her example towards wealth, he must spend lots of time with his grandma in her final days to the point that he no longer notices what she calls “old people’s smell.”
So M shamelessly shows up at his grandma’s house, earnestly asking if he can do anything for her; the old lady is quite well aware of what he’s up to, but he is no more grasping than her sons and a lot more charming. He even moves in with her, despite her misgivings, and begins to take on the role of her main caregiver.
What I Liked About How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
For me, the protagonist M was the most interesting character. He appeared initially to be a devil-may-care kind of chap, choosing to while away his waking hours playing computer games. Not caring much about his family members, least of all his grandma.
Yet upon realizing his gaming dream to get rich was going nowhere, he suddenly wakes up to the need to apply himself with what appears to be the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ of a get-rich-quick scheme — feigning care for his granny in her final days to win her over and inherit her house and fortune when she passes on.
As smart viewers, it’s not hard for us to see where this story’s going to end. He either gets everything or gains nothing but a heart. That’s how stories like this typically conclude.
Well, since the movie’s been out for quite some time now, I’m sure you don’t mind if I offer a spoiler here; M gains both (though the fortune part isn’t quite as plentiful as M at the start of the tale might have desired).
Watching M gain a heart was what carried the story from start to end. To see his transformation from being a “willing” caregiver with ulterior motives to one who eventually weeps after his granny’s illness takes a turn for the worse and she eventually passes, is instructive.
For me.
A Film That Exposes Family, Warts And All
Growing up, I don’t have much by way of a great family life.
Those were years spent meaninglessly trying to fit in and to gain love and approval from a family that never quite connected one with another. My parents weren’t educated much and toiling for a living was their chief concern. It was all about existential living really, heart connections be damned. My father in particular was a typical old Chinese patriarch. His way or the highway was how my four older siblings and I lived our lives daily. Woe betide any who defied my father, including my mom.
Watching this film I’m not unaware of the clear filial piety motif that stitches each corner and turn of the story. After all the characters were, like me, ethnic Chinese, though they were born and raised in Thailand.
Part of me rallied against this intrusive reminder to honor one’s ancestors. I don’t, which caused me (and likely those now around me like my wife and kids) no amount of discomfort and some grief for most of the last five decades of my life.
It’s especially trying when the Lunar New Year (LNY) comes around, which incidentally was four days ago when we welcomed the Year of the Snake (according to the Chinese Zodiac).
Visitations, pleasantries, and exchanges of good wishes among extended family we hardly connect with typify this time of the year. Hollow in my opinion these are. Yet so much a part of the tradition that it’ll take more than the likes of stubborn me to overturn these superficial engagements.
Which is really what it often is. Families that strive on the surface to appear united, but deep down are more often than not, deeply divided.
A Film That Exposes My Fear
For me in particular, my greatest contention with family centers around my fear and awkward interactions with elders.
Born the youngest in my clan, I’ve always been lorded over by my family members. And I’ve always resented it within but could say nothing. So I bury my feelings, hoping one day I can be freed from their tyranny.
But it is an exercise in futility. One clear example is how my wife and I are, less than a couple of months from now, uprooting from our matrimonial home of 25 years to live closer to her aging parents. Although I understood in principle why, and was even instrumental in picking the new apartment we’ll eventually occupy, part of me realizes that the choice was never really mine.
Despite turning 55 this year, I still seem to lack agency in making life decisions. Somehow or other, I can’t seem to break away from the shackles of tradition and tyranny.
Perhaps one day when I reach the peak of the family pyramid (meaning there is no one else in the family tree hierarchy above me), I might find that agency. But by then, I’ll probably be too seriously infirm to appreciate it!
But I digress.
What If I Start To Care?
Earlier I said that, in the film, M’s transformation was instructive for me and key to what I liked about the story
The reason I said that is that, unbeknownst to M, he has a heart to begin with. One capable of genuine love and affection. He just didn’t know it, though viewers see enough clues to notice. Clues like how he has to help bathe his granny, buy food for her, and accompany her on her daily errands.
It’s not a surprise then when later in the film, we see his heart turn towards a care for his granny that surprises even him. And much of that came about from extended time spent with her. Those moments when his attempt to put on a brave face — telling her the cancer treatment no longer works; executing the final rites before burial — breaks apart and he cries silently and poetically, will tug at the thickest of heartstrings.
Which is instructive for me.
Maybe if I’m brave enough to step into my discomfort and spend more time with those I resent, perhaps in time too I can be like M. Discovering a heart for the elderly that I don’t believe I have right now.
That is a frightening thought for me.
Because so much of me resists that. Like the way I usually try to resist the “mandatory” LNY visits this time of year to families and relatives I barely talk to or even see for most of the year.
What if I start to care after all?
I don’t yet know the answer now, but with the move closer to my in-laws, the answer may come sooner than I am ready for.
Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, despite my ambivalence about family that it unmasks, I would still highly recommend this film for its narrative flow and characterization. And its insights into the inner workings of a culture steeped in tradition and antiquity.
[The film is currently available on Netflix]
Powerful self-reflections. May God give grace in unexpected ways.