‘Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead’ review: A trim tale of morality

Director Nithiwat Tharatorn finds new avenues to explore in Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead.

There’s something that hits differently when a crime is committed by an everyman type versus a seasoned criminal. It’s the fine line between reality versus fantasy, with the everyman representing a projection of familiar anxieties, troubles, and – more often than not – the more realistic, rapidly escalating comedy of errors (and horrors) as the everyman tries not to get caught. This is the case for the latest Thai film, Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead, where this slow-burning crime drama shows how far an ordinary middle-class man will go for his crime.

Opening with a hilariously macabre voiceover from a corpse, Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead pivots to its central character, Toh (Theeradej Wongpuapan), an award-winning bank employee whose job is at risk of being eliminated due to the bank’s AI program. With a stay-at-home wife expecting a particular lifestyle for her and her daughter, along with his daughter’s expensive schooling and mounting bills, Toh’s stress is high.

Writer-director Nithiwat Tharatorn takes the time to heavily flesh out and move the pieces of this complex plot together prior to the crime itself. By the time Toh resorts to stealing money, the audience understands who this man is, his family’s circumstances, and the growing fear and resentment building up in him toward his unstable workplace. Despite this strong foundational build-up, some time could have been shaved off by paring down Toh’s background explanation to give the pacing a little bit of a boost.

Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead watches as the bad decisions pile up.

He soon teams up with his younger colleague, Petch (Vachirawich Wattanapakdeepaisan), who introduces him to the idea of stealing money from the dormant bank account of the deceased woman at the start of the film. Already, this is turning out to be a really bad idea, with human greed and desperation kicking in for both Toh and Petch separately when they first start withdrawing money in tiny increments.

While these two are engaging in their mainly poorly conceived theft, a separate storyline (that will inevitably converge with the main one) forms surrounding the deceased’s estranged daughter (Fatima Dechawaleekul), who finds herself the target of the mysterious pyro-happy hitman, Vodka (Chulachak Chakrabongse). His focus is on hunting down the missing 30 million baht that initially belonged to his boss, and he has since narrowed down the scope of his search to the daughter.

Typically, in these kinds of crime films, you want the everyman to potentially succeed. Part of that is due to their character as a human being, but also because of how relatable their issues are. In Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead, Tharatorn does away with that. Toh’s and Petch’s problems are, arguably, easy enough to solve, and even one character points out to Toh during one emotionally intense sequence that he had other options for his daughter. Yet, every step of the way, Toh and Petch make bad decision after bad decision.

A slow tale of morality with no easy endings.

Toh, specifically, evolves for the worse. From a grade-A employee to a gun-wielding manipulator, his downward spiral into crime is hard to watch because it is so incredibly avoidable. Selling everything is Theeradej Wongpuapan, who goes from a calm, model employee and husband into someone brimming with rage. Yet, Tharatorn reminds the audience that he’s not hardened in key moments, painting a stark difference between the career criminals and Toh.

Even still, Tharatorn’s message rings clearly in the final moments of Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead. Money isn’t everything, and giving up one’s integrity and morals to pursue it ultimately condemns us. Yes, the movie itself takes its time to fully get going and pick up steam, but the ending itself wraps everything up in a well-earned, slightly nihilistic bow that weirdly satisfies (if you’re into that).

If there’s anything to pick apart, it’s the ongoing trend of modern films having poor lighting, especially in violent scenes. Vodka’s introduction in the dimly lit forest proved difficult to watch, not because of what happens, but because there was a lack of light. The pivotal action sequence at the end of the film also suffers from this, with what would arguably be some pretty cool moments being undercut by inadequate lighting.

The bottom line.

Everybody Love Me When I’m Dead is a slow-burning morality tale wrapped in criminal fixings and trim, proving to be wholly satisfying. While some story elements could have been edited or slimmed down to better improve the film’s pacing, Tharatorn crafts a fascinating look into a couple of men who make the wrong decisions every step of the way, with actual hard-sticking consequences.

Everybody Loves Me When I’m Dead is now streaming exclusively on Netflix. Watch the trailer below.

Images courtesy of Netflix.

Sarah Musnicky