Avis Metacritic

Its genuinely difficult to think of a better feature debut in recent memory than How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies.

What “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” lacks in subtlety, it more than compensates for in its range of feeling and the surprising depth of its feel-good reassurances.

It is a sentimental journey to redemption but one that Boonnitipat grounds in understanding and empathy.

Alongside beautifully-judged performances and management of a tricky tone, Boonnitipat and Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn’s sentimental but never saccharine screenplay nails something true and relatable about all the complicated responses we can have to the likely death of family.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, the debut feature from the writer and director Pat Boonnitipat, is a warm, witty tear-jerker improbably rooted in elder exploitation.

The unapologetic sentimentality doesn’t make this bittersweet comedy-drama any less touching or insightful in its observation of spiky family interactions when end-of-life issues and questions of inheritance cause sparks.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a sweet, sad and sentimental Thai end-of-life melodrama titled and set-up like a greedy-family farce.

The dialogue is biting, crisp, smart, and frequently heartbreaking. It’s disappointing, then, that the narrative drags in places, particularly in the middle stretch. Brevity is key here; it all just becomes too much.

This is a tear-jerker that does not shrink from using plangent piano chords on the soundtrack to tell you when to feel sad, but it also has something interesting to say about intergenerational wealth.

It’s a droll, perceptive and shamelessly sentimental look at generational tensions.