This Thailand Hit Makes for a Great Christmas Film for All

The lovely "How to Make Millions Before Grandmother Dies" reminds us all of special family members we don't cherish enough

Possibly the one wise choice I made as a 20-year-old was to regularly visit my grandmother, my mother’s mother. At that time she had been a widow for over 20 years.

She lived by herself in a duplex. She had a car, but because of macular degeneration in both eyes, she didn’t go out much.

Needless to say, she was thrilled whenever I showed up, which was usually after college classes in the early evening. The routine was the same: dinner, then Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.

I can’t for the life of my recall what motivated me to visit her 2-3 times a week initially. However, I remember enjoying it once it got going, something my teenage-self would not have comprehended. To that earlier self, grandma’s house was boring, her routines elderly, her interior-design preferences too grandma-ish.

The Thai hit movie, 2024’s “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies,” reminded me of those times, those life changes, the difference between my teenage view of Grandma Maple and my 20-year-old view. It registered true emotionally.

In this movie, which you all should see, the young male Thai grandson, simply named “M,” angles to get an inheritance from his crabby grandmother.

He’s been stiffed by another elderly relative, who dies and leaves a huge inheritance to M’s cousin, a prostitute. She was “first in line,” as they say in the movie, and so M, a failed streamer and general loser of a Gen-Z-er, sizes up his grandmother.

That paragraph tells you about the dark motivations of the main character, yet the movie remains artsy and sweet enough, which makes it a pleasure to watch the various characters act nicely to grandmother, while the movie presents them very nicely, and all the while we know what’s in their heart of hearts.

Now, in Hollywood fashion, this Thai movie promises to follow an Iron Law of Screenplays. That Law, for weepies like this movie, dictates that the grandson will learn to love his grandmother more than the money he wants from her death. She, in turn, will learn to appreciate him. This traditional-moral has wide appeal, of course.

I'm happy to report that while "How To" contains the expected sweetening elements of all tearjerkers, it's not too saccharine. Matter of fact, it's much closer to a Studio Ghibli film in its presentation of honesty of emotion, and in its earnest portrayal of characters and their relationships to each other and their environment.

That this is a box-office hit in East Asia speaks well of their tastes today. I cannot fathom this movie doing well in America right now, where quick-cutting close shots would too forcefully emphasize melodramatic emotion. “How To” has a lighter, subtler touch, the kind you might find in an earnest 1970s American New Wave film.

The film begins with Mengju, the grandmother, visiting her parents’ burial plot. Her family is there for this annual occasion, yet some of them, particularly the Gen-Z-ers, are detached, faces buried in their phone screens.

Therefore it’s no wonder that Mengju acts sassy and crabby. A widow living by herself, she can’t fathom why the youngsters can’t understand your basic, traditional, thousands-of-years-old practice of proper ancestor veneration.

The basic generational conflicts feels all too real here, even if you aren’t East Asian. The movie hits the beats of classical Hollywood well, mixing realism with touches of melodramatic emotion, as it moves toward a known but devastating conclusion. Early in the film, Mengju is diagnosed with cancer, given one year to live, and she undergoes chemotherapy. Meanwhile, M moves to become "first place" in her will by being her caretaker.

Here the movie confronts a great conundrum of life: should we desire to do good first before attempting it, or do we need to practice doing good so that we begin to desire it?

For example, my mother told me to always be nice to my grandmother, even when, as a teenager, I didn’t feel like it. If I only were nice so many times in a row, maybe then, she suggested, I would feel good about it.

For M, he doesn't know he's doing the latter, which is acting to become caring. Does his grandmother know he's got his eye on an inheritance? Of course, and that was part of the delight of the movie for me, watching her know that he and everybody else have ulterior motives, and then treating them accordingly.

The movie seems both particularly Thai -- I say this as a wild guess on my part -- and widely appealing to anybody anywhere. The issues of dealing with aging, with solitary elderly family members who need major life changes just to keep thriving, are probably something nearly everybody deals with.

The trouble of mixing family and money, especially inheritance problems, seem applicable to most, too.

And we know the screenplay’s adherence to its Iron Law means that M will need to become more "traditional," which here really means just being a relational being with a fellow close family member. That will get him closer to the ancestor veneration his grandmother has practiced all along.

The movie expectedly fixates on his journey from point A, Gen-Z streamer, to point B, faithful and loving grandson.

But as I said, "How To" has the formal elements of a more cinephilic movie, with very few oh-so-obvious sentimental moments, such as predictable and maudlin close-up reaction shots.

In the end, I felt like I had just watched a good, live-action Ghibli movie, including the musical choices.

And as with Ghibli fare as well, I felt too that I had been reminded of wise truths about my experience of living, encouraging me for another day.

For that reason I can commend this movie to you all, if you're willing to give yourself over to its heart.

I miss my grandmother terribly. At 45, all four of my grandparents are gone.

The movie had me at its ending: gone they are, but not forgotten, and maybe not even gone.