Thai blockbuster “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” is a sentimental comedy-drama that mixes filial piety and avaricious schemes all the way to a multi-hankie finale. Filled with family complications, it follows a young adult slacker who leaves his not exactly booming game-casting career to care for his terminally ill granny.
The smoothly-crafted, leisurely-paced crowd-pleaser marks the feature debut of Thai filmmaker Pat Boonnitipat, and has set box office records at home and throughout Southeast Asia. With an engaging cast led by dimpled actor and pop singer Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul and 78-year-old Usha “Taew” Seamkhum, it renders universal the central message of cherishing those we love while there is still time.
How many hit films start and end in the cemetery? It’s where we first meet the forceful, critical Grandma of the title, a Thai woman of Chinese descent. She is directing her extended family in the Qingming celebrations to honor her parents’ grave. The ancestors are in what one of Grandma’s adult children euphemistically refers to as a “townhouse” burial situation — that is, on top of each other. Grandma longs for a solo burial plot for herself, but it’s something that would cost millions of baht and is beyond the reach of most of her descendants.
After a small accident sends Grandma to the hospital, it turns out that she may be returning to the graveyard sooner than she thought, when her doctors discover a Stage 4 cancer. Her children — daughter Sew (Sarinrat Thomas), older son Kiang (Sanya “Duu” Kunakorn) and ne’er-do-well younger son Soei (Pongsatorn “Phuak” Jongwilas) — quarrel over what to tell her and how to help her.
Meanwhile, Sew’s purposeless, live-at-home son, who goes by the name M (Assaratanakul), volunteers to take on Grandma’s care, not because he wants to repay the older woman who partially raised him, but because he imagines she might leave him her house. Despite this less-than-admirable motivation, M and his prickly Grandma eventually rub along quite nicely and develop a mutual respect. He joins her in her early morning congee-selling expeditions, takes her to the hospital for chemo treatments and on the train to visit estranged family members. About 70 minutes in, she grudgingly tells him, “It’s good to have you around. It’s fun.”
As M remains quietly dutiful, he sees how his sacrifice benefits his overworked single mother Sew, and in comparison, how little time and care Kiang and Soei actually contribute, despite all that their mother has done for them. Here, Boonnitipat and co-screenwriter Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn develop another theme, showing how women in patriarchal Thai society often get the short end of the stick. For instance, Grandma’s older brother is unwilling to help her financially, even though she was the primary caregiver for their parents and he received all of the family inheritance. Sew pretty much sums it up when she remarks ruefully, “Sons inherit the assets and daughters inherit cancer.”
When Grandma takes a turn for the worse, instead of pulling together, her family disintegrates into petty squabbles over the potential inheritance. Luckily, the screenwriters spring a few good twists before the matriarch is finally laid to rest. Assaratanakul (who like co-writer Thiptinnakorn is also of Thai-Chinese descent) gets the opportunity to show off his singing skills … in Cantonese.
Per the press kit, Seamkhum, who had previously only performed in commercials, was chosen from more than 100 candidates for the title role. The choice pays off as Seamkhum gives a feisty performance that avoids maudlin notes.
The main thing that feels out of place in the lengthy running time is a subplot involving M’s photogenic paternal cousin Mui (gorgeous actress and model Tontawan “Tui” Tantivejakul) as a skilled nurse who is every old person’s dream granddaughter. If her story were better integrated, it would have improved support of the main theme, and made the screenplay (and film length) tighter.
Although the colorful tech credits don’t really provide a picture of Bangkok as a metropolis, they do capture the old neighborhoods and old ways that will be forever changed with the absence of Grandma’s generation.
