How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies: Review

Thai breakout hit How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a surprisingly honest and tender portrait of familial complexity.

What surprises most in How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is the family dynamic. The interplay between the titular matriarch Mengju a.k.a. ‘Amah’ (Usha Seamkhum) and her descendants is far from harmonious. Her three adult children are involved in her life more out of duty than love, while her grandchildren are distant to the point of being strangers. Boonnitipat’s film leans into the frostiness of these relationships, exploring the busyness and self-centeredness that isolates people from their nearest and dearest. Amah’s children and grandchildren are focused on making progress, or at least making ends meet, to the detriment of all else. It’s a universal theme that’s found in the works of the finest filmmakers, from Ozu to Leigh (This would make a fine double-bill with Leigh’s Hard Truths, if you think you could stomach the emotional legwork).

After a fall, Amah’s doctors diagnose her with cancer, but her children opt not to tell her. Worse still, Amah’s grandson M (Putthipong Assaratanakul) decides to move in with Amah under the pretext of caring for her, but he hopes to inherit from her for his good work. If this is the point at which a viewer checks out from How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies in disgust, fair enough. The film doesn’t try to condemn its characters; their actions speak for themselves. M starts off as a hopeless slacker, a college dropout more concerned with gaming than getting a job. His motives for helping his poor Amah are entirely selfish, but she’s a better dose of reality than any job. 

Both visually and in the script, Boonnitipat underlines the financial and social barriers that get in his characters’ way. There is a sharp contrast between Amah’s poky apartment in the rainy downtown, and the relative upward mobility in which her adult children live. At the core of the screenplay by Boonnitipat and Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn lies an economic insecurity that drives his characters to hustle. M is inspired to help Amah when he learns that a cousin on the other side of the family looks after her grandfather while maintaining an OnlyFans account to supplement her income. At a time when younger people are frustrated by their inability to progress or find their own homes, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies suggests taking some lessons from the older generation, while reminding us that some common empathy might have skipped a generation.

The script is studded with moments and scenes that ripple with recognisable interactions and sentiment. Amah’s berating of M, whether for his inability to cook, or for the slang he speaks, could come from anyone’s parent or grandparent. This ability to transcend borders is How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies’ trump card. Despite being set in a specific milieu (A Chinese-Thai family in Bangkok), the emotions and traditions on display are effortlessly relatable. While M and Amah bounce off one another and teach each other some new tricks, the inevitability of illness and passing time prevent proceedings from becoming twee or pat. The extended family could be seen as villains of the piece, but the film is more concerned with the goodness that comes from the renewed relationship between grandmother and grandson.

In the lead role, Seamkhum is a heartbreaker. Amah is a tough old bird to have dealt with this selfish family for so long, but she’s a quiet warrior, letting many slights go with dignity and minimal fuss. Meanwhile, Assaratanakul sells M’s arrested development and gradual maturing with charm. Together, the two are a lovely watch, finding joy even as events take some inevitable turns. The leads’ warmth allows Boonnitipat to maintain a consistent tone. Harsh lessons are doled out throughout How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies; much like reality, there are no easy answers when the complexities of family, illness and debt are involved. Even when the obtrusive and unnecessarily emotional score kicks in, there’s no doubting the sincerity of the dynamics at play here. It’s a reminder that grandmas can be worth their weight in gold.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies will be released in UK & Irish cinemas by Vertigo Releasing on December 26, 2024 and on digital and VOD in the US by Well Go USA on December 10.