Director: Pat Boonntipat
Writers: Pat Boonntipat, Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn
Stars: Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul, Usha “Taew” Seamkhum, Sanya Kunakorn
Synopsis: M, a university dropout low on money and luck, volunteers to take care of his terminally ill grandmother, in the hope of pocketing an inheritance.
As increasingly rare as it is for one’s first discovery of a film’s existence to come via the pages of a newspaper, that’s precisely what happened to this critic in July. Eager to stay abreast of the world’s ongoings while traveling abroad for a wedding, I made a habit of stealing the hotel’s international edition of The New York Times. On this particular day, I flipped to the arts section, as I do, and came across a headline that captured my interest: “Why Southeast Asia Is Crying Over This Movie.” Color me intrigued.
The subject, Pat Boonnitipat’s feature-film debut, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, wasn’t a title I had heard of. But these gray, hallowed pages told me that the film – the tale of an aimless young man called “M” (Putthipong Assaratanakul, better known in his home country by the stage name “Billkin”) who quits his job to care for his dying grandmother, Amah (Usha Seamkhum), hoping to win her over in order to inherit her fortune upon her death – was a box office hit in Thailand and a sensation across Southeast Asia. Daniel Nico Laudit, a content creator who chose to document his viewing experience for his then-4.5 million Tik Tok followers, told the Times, “I went straight to the restroom after the movie because I wanted to cry out loud.” Other reactions were similar: Ian Jeevan, a financial consultant in Singapore, captioned his own reaction video, “Running over to hug my grandma now!!”
Such sentiments are bound to be a dime a dozen when it comes to How to Make Millions, as the film, at its simplest, is an excellent excuse for a good cry, whether alone in a restroom or buried in your grandmother’s arms. It’s conceit, simple and familiar, isn’t exactly ambitious in nature, as it places an apathetic gamer in the position of caregiver for his grandma; the perfect recipe for a weepy dramedy the likes of which we’ve seen before. Yet despite that notion, Boonnitipat’s film manages to transcend the trappings that a movie with a similar logline would willingly drown in, placing the intricacies of its principal relationship at the forefront as opposed to leaning to unnatural antagonism between two people living on opposite tracks of life. It helps that, even with the telegraphic nature of its plot – whether or not this greedy grandson will grow to cherish time with his elderly relative as opposed to merely desiring her fortune isn’t much of a question at all – it’s an easy story to root for.
Inspired by its co-writer’s own families, How to Make Millions begins with a family gathering for the Qingming holiday, a ritual during which families come together to honor their late loved ones by visiting their tombs and leaving flowers, snacks, and other gifts at their feet out of respect. At Amah’s request, all take part, though M stays on the sidelines, his attention entirely consumed by his phone. (He dropped out of college to pursue a career in streaming, a goal his parents find difficult to support, leading to his distinction as “good for nothing” per the adults who find themselves drowning as they attempt to keep him afloat.) When Amah falls and a visit to the hospital reveals that she has stage four cancer, the family elects to keep the diagnosis to themselves, but M has plans of his own: To tell her the truth, curry favor, and to follow in the footsteps of his cousin Mui (Tontawan Tantivejakul), who was gifted her grandfather’s house after taking care of him for an extended period of time.
In M’s eyes, the task, once a nuisance, isn’t as much of a bother when a sizable reward sits on the horizon. In turn, it doesn’t take too long for How to Make Millions to expand its own vision, embracing M’s evolving worldview as he becomes more willing to test the bounds of the world he’d trapped himself in. He takes in his surroundings, looking up from a screen to feel raindrops trickle onto his lanky arms, to see flower petals drifting away in the breeze. The ever-changing seasons play a significant role in Boonnitipat’s narrative, appropriate for a Taiwanese film, as the nation’s overall culture believes in the importance of man and nature finding ways to coexist, to benefit one another. Fitting, too, is the very idea of coexistence itself: between youth and experience, ambition and indifference, and even simpler, between two people who would have nothing in common if not for shared blood.
As such ideas unfold, they shouldn’t be too difficult for viewers (and skeptics alike) to clock, even to dismiss. But “cheap” is the last word one should use to describe what Boonnitipat and his How to Make Millions co-writer, Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn, do with their characters’ emotions. They craft seemingly-inconsequential yet intimate set pieces that connect to the past or present, with a ripple effect still to come in the future, all of which are authentic, if still emotionally-charged. One of these moments in particular, which involves M accessing a memory from his childhood in which his grandmother tells him something pivotal, may be sniffed out by viewers who wish to put their detective skills to work, but it’s more about how hard it hits M than how successful a revelation it is to the audience. If nothing else, it’s a scene that provides its main character with a moment of reflection, which Boonnitipat depicts with a simple yet beautiful camera pan-to-the-past move that nearly reduced this critic to a blubbering puddle of tears.
Then again, he was on the brink of that tender state for much of the film’s runtime. You’re still human if you don’t find yourself a weepy mess by the time the credits roll, but only just, as the true magic of Boonnitipat’s debut is its universality. It’s specific enough for distant viewers to latch onto as an emotional narrative they can get behind, but plenty broad, a quality that should allow heartstrings of all creeds to feel a tug. That won’t be enough for some. Then again, for those that need a story of its ilk, How to Make Millions will be just right. Perhaps that’s what Boonnitipat was after.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is now streaming on Netflix in Southeast Asia. It will become available in other territories later this year.
