The family drama How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies shone brightly at box offices across Southeast Asia after debuting in Thailand in 2022. From acclaimed first-time director Pat Boonnitipat, the film tells a heartwarming yet insightful story about aging, inheritance, and intergenerational relationships.
We join young M, a struggling university dropout, and his fiercely independent grandmother, Amah. When Amah is diagnosed with terminal cancer, M moves in to care for her, hoping her house will be left to him. But over time, his selfish motives evolve as he forms an unlikely bond with his grandma.
Amy isn’t easily impressed by M’s attempts to earn her favor at first. Between her sardonic humor and his lazy ways, their pairing seems an odd match. But Boonnitipat grounds the story in authenticity, showing us the layers beneath initial impressions. Whether accompanying Amah to chemotherapy or selling congee beside her in the market, M gains a new understanding—and so do we—of her strengths and struggles.
Under the director’s guidance, seasoned performers Usha Seamkhum and Putthipong Assaratanakul bring Amah and M to a rich, nuanced life. Their connection feels so real because it taps universal themes we’ve known personally or witnessed: the ups and downs of family, coming to appreciate our elders, and finding purpose even in life’s later years.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies shines a light on realities many families face, making their story profoundly moving yet wonderfully upbeat. By turns sweet, funny, and thought-provoking, it celebrates the ties that strengthen us through life’s changes. For those lucky enough to have grandparents still, maybe this film inspires treasuring them while we can.
Bringing Families Together
Our story focuses on young M and his feisty grandmother, Amah. M has just learned that his cousin inherited their grandfather’s home solely from caring for him at the end. Hoping for the same, M decides to support Amah when she receives shocking news—cancer is ravaging her body.
Amah comes from a big, complicated family. Her eldest son, Kiang, enjoys financial success but neglects visits. Daughter Sew works tirelessly for little credit. Troublemaking son Soei mooches money, shirking responsibility.
As Amah’s health declines, these dynamics stir. Kiang and Soei pay rare calls, eyeing her property. M moves in, assisting Amah but mainly chasing inheritance. Yet over time, his perspective transforms.
M accompanies Amah to the doctor’s, caring for her through chemotherapy’s ravages. We see him truly listening to Amah’s wisdom for the first time. Her kindness, humor, and perseverance in adversity imprint upon M, and he commits himself to caring for her needs.
Amah’s shrewd nature means she knows M’s original motives. Still, she warms to his company, finding fulfillment in their bond. Witnessing M’s devotion, Amah’s family grudgingly supports him too.
The story explores their deepening relationship, showing how circumstances can strengthen unlikely pairings. Amah sees in M the diligent student he once was, disappointed only in his surrendered ambition. For his part, M achieves understanding through dedicatedly helping Amah.
By the story’s end, M has anchored himself as Amah’s most devoted family. Their care, respect, and affection for one another teach that genuine love transcends material goals or past failings, forging a family’s beating heart.
Complex Connections
From the get-go, M seemed an unlikely caretaker—a dropout scheming to inherit his grandma’s home. But dig deeper, and there’s empathy under the surface.
We meet M struggling after flunking college, adrift until spotting fortune in eldercare. Putthipong Assaratanakul breathes wit into the lazy dreamer, easing our doubts as M’s motivations evolve. He listens more than speaking, conveying disappointment surfacing in a lost young man rediscovering purpose.
Amah too hides complexity beneath her prickly shell. As the family matriarch facing mortality, Usha Seamkhum endures with gritty grace. She sees through M’s ploys yet slowly reopens her home, knowing life’s brevity. Subtly, frustration with her family’s negligence emerges—like requesting M read difficult books, sharing wisdom before it’s lost.
Secondary characters spotlight generational divides. Sew never wavers in filial duty despite society privileging sons. Amah’s disregard deepens our understanding of her burdened daughter’s sacrifice. Kiang and Soei appear self-serving scoundrels until their humane sides surface, revealing flaws even family bears.
Together, the cast breathes soul into individuals rather than character types. Assaratanakul and Seamkhum, starring in her debut, convey realism that strokes both comedy and pathos. Their bond, hard-won through showing up day-by-day, teaches as it moves—as families do, with resilience and care.
Cultural Ties That Bind
How to Make Millions subtly weaves cultural threads through its families’ fabric. Amah laments traditions slipping with each generational shift. Still, bonds of care and kinship endure across eras.
As a Thai-Chinese clan, economics, inheritance, and gender roles carry extra weight. Amah knows losing heritage and mother tongue with acculturation. Respecting elders remains central to her identity.
Cancer illuminates life’s fragility, our duty to parents who sacrificed for us. Amah stresses continuity, bequeathing family home and history. Her children respond according to character: Kiang dutifully, Soei exploitatively, and Sew tirelessly out of love.
M and Amah symbolize societal change, new opportunities with new divides. She disapproves of abandoning study for fortune-chasing. But their time together proves wisdom across generations if we make an effort to understand.
Amah’s Twilight highlights mortality’s lessons. What legacy will we leave? Her quiet generosity—praying illness from loved ones, working past old age—inspires. Through Amah, the film says family can redeem our worst traits or reveal our humanity.
Its poignant portrait reminds us that while families may frustrate or fail us, community and heritage remain. Our purpose finds us in committed relationships, not possessions. And even those linked by law, not love, may surprise us with compassion.
Emotions Flow Freely
Director Pat Boonnitipat shows a deft hand with How to Make Millions, slipping laughs between lumps in our throats. From Amah’s sardonic jabs to softer scenes of care, he paces momentum perfectly.
Cinematographer Boonyanuch grounds characters in intimate close-ups. Beyond walls encasing Amah and M, her lens lingers on patients alongside them, families passing in the market—lives woven with our own.
Location and design immerse us too. From choked corridors to the lush pomegranate framing Amah’s window, production creates a breathing character alongside actors. Mise-en-scène tells as much story as scripted roles.
Subtly, editor Thammarat’s build allows humor and pathos to breathe freely. While pacing lags at points, he trusts earthy moments to resonate without rushing them. The film sings because of it.
Most affecting, Jaithep’s score delicately lifts even gentle scenes. Her bittersweet melodies acknowledge every emotion, leading tears just as laughter. Music guides what words show and tell.
Together, talent crafts a moving tapestry, embracing every feeling within our families too. Technical mastery makes complex characters and their compassionate bonds easy to get lost within.
Cherished Traditions
No doubt How to Make Millions resonated so widely due to its rich portrayal of shared human experiences. Seeing our struggles and passions reflected nourishes the soul.
As Thailand’s top box office draw, the film’s success speaks to caregiving and inheritance topics affecting all. Its exploration sparked open discussion of suffering privately borne and duties often taken for granted.
Most poignant is showing immigrant families facing change but clinging to identity. Amah keeping her mother tongue and ritual alive honors a heritage that shaped her. Her wish to pass on this history reminds us of the little ways a community survives.
Accessible storytelling lets cultures old and young find joy and wisdom in each other. Dark themes emerged lighter through humor and spirit. Its choice to address mortality with grace, not fear, embraced life’s fragility.
Since then, cherished traditions bind communities. This gem reminds me that in striving to understand lies hope. By spotlighting struggles linking all families, it stirs compassion across borders in a time many need such reminders. Ultimately, its heartfelt tribute illustrates how, through commitment to one another, even loss can bring loved ones closer.
Cherished Bonds That Endure
How to Make Millions offers cinematic gold through its nuanced themes and characters. Spotlighting a family’s resilience amid loss shows culture’s role in strengthening what links us.
Lead performances by Assaratanakul and Seamkhum breathe life into individuals growing through commitment to one another. Their bond reminds me that acceptance arises from dedicatedly learning what shapes loved ones.
Storytelling blends laughter and tears in portraits of familial duties fulfilled despite humanity’s flaws. Directors find meaning where we least expect it, giving voice to hopes uniting all communities.
This film deserves acclaim for sparking discussions around inheritance, caregiving, and tradition’s importance. More than revenue, its impact stems from reflections stirred on cherishing each moment with those who shaped us.
For anyone with family, How to Make Millions offers catharsis in watching relationships strengthen through earnestly meeting each need. Its characters sing of legacies lying not in possessions but gifts given freely each day: our time, our compassion. Ultimately, it gifts appreciation for bonds cementing our lives with meaning wherever we find community and heritage.
The Review
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a poignant gem that gets to the heart of what family means. Through his fully realized characters, director Boonnitipat shines compassion's light on common struggles linking all communities. This affecting portrait of cross-generational caregiving amid cultural change deserves global acclaim for stimulating reflection on life's greatest lessons.
PROS
- Believable, nuanced characters brought to life by standout performances
- Poignant, relatable exploration of familial bonds, cultural traditions, and end-of-life caregiving
- Balanced mixing of humor and emotion keeps the impactful themes accessible
- Intimate cinematography and production design immerse viewers in the family's world
CONS
- Pacing drags slightly in the middle stretch
- An excessive length of 125 minutes tests viewers' stamina for such a heavy topic
- Cultural context may go over some international audiences' heads at times
