Pomegranates appear in this Thai blockbuster in an extended cameo. But Pat Boonnitipat’s feature debut is a pomegranate that seems like the quintessential melodramatic family story. But once you open it, you end up picking arils of a range of emotions and less-than-noble intentions. This movie, much like life, has one core truth: death. It is this impending death that drives dialogue between the generations and lays bare the themes of loneliness, and filial piety.
The film moves in a full circle, opening with a family visiting a gravesite for the Qinming festival, and ending at a grave. However, what unfurls in between is a poignant and tender journey. M is as cold and detached as his grandfather’s tomb, in the first scene. However, after his grandmother Mengju is diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer he decides to move in with her to curry favour with her, and in the hopes of inheriting her house. M’s act is fuelled by Mui’s (Tontawan Tantivejakul) sub-plot: a nurse who inherited her grandfather’s house by looking after him in his final days, a job that she calls high paying and easy.
What follows is a family that disintegrates over inheritance and M treading the hard-path and managing to win the trust of the sceptical matriarch. Ah Ma’s eldest son, Kiang’s (Sanya Kunakorn) concerns are all monetary, whereas Sew (Sarinrat Thomas) works extra shifts to walk the moral high ground that society expects her to. Despite being knee-deep in debt, Soei (Pongsatorn Jongwilas) is presented as somewhat loving, only to be proved otherwise later.
Oscar Wilde writes in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” M capitulates to greed and selfish desire; however, he evolves. And the film is essentially about people who stumble and find grounds to walk together, again. M is a qi-chou (a good-for-nothing slacker) when the film begins, and he is not touted as self-effacing at any point. He is money-minded and almost cruel to his dying Ah Ma, right after she gives her house to her youngest. But his changes are subtle, brimming with compassion, and that makes a huge difference in the life of Mengju.
The success of Boonnitipat’s and Thiptinnakorn’s writing is that they do not attempt to straitjacket characters into binaries of good and evil. Kiang and Soei are too invested in themselves to genuinely care for an ailing Mengju, yet they are no Goneril and Regan. Sew loves her mother, but the woman is herself not Cordelia, as one keeps wondering if her behaviour is dictated by the edicts of duty. Mengja is no Lear caught in the storm, and you cannot help but notice that she fails to break the circle of inheritance by giving the house to Soei, leaving Sew with nothing. Yet when the family embarks on the funeral procession, in the end, they are flawed and grieving, but we see their cracks sealed with love.
There is not much to talk about patriarchy in Asian households, for it makes an appearance in almost every frame. But it helps you understand why Sew says, “Sons inherit the goods. Daughters get the genes.” It also helps you look at Mui without judgement, for she is only doing what it takes to survive in a world that is exceptionally unkind to women.
Beyond all, it leaves you with a bitter aftertaste of being lonely, of the solitude of the day following the Chinese New Year celebrations, and the sorrow of eating leftovers alone. Love is time, and when M says, “I have time. I’d like to spend it with you,” it pricks you, and you bleed guilt.
The film’s soundtrack sits like a second skin, specifically the piano scores when M first visits grandma, which makes you feel like you are floating, and the track that accompanies the funeral procession. The pacing is perfect, never lagging nor hurried, capturing the old neighbourhood in all its quietude, and the domestic set-up is amplified by the sounds of the neighbourhood, the train, the downpour, and the market.
In the scene in which M sings the Teochow lullaby, Thai singer-actor Putthipong “Bilkin” Assaratanakul and the debutante Usha “Taew” Seamkhum attain a sort of perfection that blurs the boundaries between acting and becoming.
This film puts a needle into the left corner of your heart. With every sigh and breath, it pricks a little and hits too close to home. But in the end, the movie salves your wounds because you realise that “to err is human, to forgive divine” and what it means to give without receiving.
Film: How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Thai)
Director: Pat Boonnitipat
Cast: Putthipong "Billkin" Assaratanakul, Usha "Taew" Seamkhum, Sarinrat "Jear" Thomas