Director Pat Boonnitipat’s How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies has become a sleeper hit since its release in south-east Asia in September 2024. It is now the second-highest grossing film of the year in Thailand, the most popular Thai film of all time in Singapore and Malaysia, and the most financially successful Asian film in Indonesia. It has also made history as the first Thai film to be shortlisted in the best international film category of the Academy Awards.
The film, which is released in the UK on December 26, follows the relationship between M (Putthipong Assaratanakul) and his grandmother, Menju (Usha Seamkhum). M, a university dropout, moves into his grandmother’s house to become her full-time carer after she is diagnosed with stage-four stomach cancer.
His initial motive is not empathy, but to curry her favour so he can inherit a large sum of money when she dies. Over time, however, M develops a genuine connection with his grandmother and the pair enjoy a reciprocal caring relationship.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies had not been expected to do well at the box office – it was, after all, the debut film of the director and two main actors.
Its sleeper popularity largely seems to have stemmed from a viral social media trend, with audience members posting videos of themselves before and after (and, at times, during) the film. The former is usually of happy, smiley faces, whereas the latter is of uncontrollable crying. This trend has generated hype around the film as a heartfelt tearjerker that speaks deeply to its audience.
Family ties
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies has also inspired audience members from south-east Asia to use their sentimental reactions to the film as a springboard to talk about their own relationships with their parents and grandparents.
Whereas discussions of caring for older people in the western world are regularly framed around institutional care and the associated costs, cultural narratives around care and older people in east and south-east Asia are more interested in intergenerational relationships and reciprocity.
The depiction of intergenerational care in Boonnitipat’s film is not too different from many other east and south-east Asian films about older people – for example, Late Spring (1949), A Simple Life (2011), Singapore Dreaming (2006), and Plan 75 (2022).
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In these films, caring responsibilities largely fall onto the women in the family. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is notable in its critique of this gendered dynamic. It emphasises the ways in which women are regularly shortchanged and expected to perform care labour while men are not.
Menju’s daughter Sew (Sarinrat Thomas) has to alter her working hours to help her mother out. Her brothers, however, only pretend to care about their mother so they can extract money from her.
In another instance, one of Menju’s sons refuses to perform his caring responsibilities and instead pays his way out by putting her into institutional care. As Sew says: “Sons inherit the house. Daughters inherit cancer.”
The film was chosen for the Academy Award shortlist due to its “exceptional quality, heartfelt storyline and international appeal”. But whether or not it picks up the Oscar in March, the videos of so many people crying their eyes out to this film are, for me, prize enough.
MaoHui Deng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
