THE MORAL COST OF SURVIVAL

Netflix thriller Everybody Loves Me When I'm Dead marks a dark genre shift for director Nithiwat Tharatorn

- Story by TATAT BUNNAG

The deputy bank manager faces immense pressure when he learns that his position is soon to be replaced by artificial intelligence. Struggling with his family's growing financial burdens, he decides to find a desperate way out — by stealing money from the account of a deceased person, one with no living relatives to verify their identity.

Director Nithiwat Tharatorn, best known for his sentimental dramas and romantic comedies such as The Teacher's Diary and Analog Squad, takes a bold step into darker territory with Everybody Loves Me When I'm Dead, a gripping crime thriller that hits surprisingly close to home.

Beneath its thrilling surface lies a story about the fragility of ordinary life in an increasingly unstable urban world, where financial struggles drive even the most decent people to exploit loopholes in the system.

At first glance, the premise might remind viewers of Western crime sagas like Breaking Bad or Ozark — ordinary individuals pushed by circumstance into extraordinary acts of corruption. Yet Everybody Loves Me When I'm Dead brings something distinctively Thai to this familiar setup.

It examines how moral boundaries erode in a society obsessed with survival and appearances, and it portrays the weight of modern-day desperation with a realism that feels both painful and relatable. This is a kind of Thai movie we rarely see — a crime drama that looks directly into the soul of its characters rather than simply judging them. The story begins as a seemingly straightforward tale of greed and opportunity before slowly transforming into something darker, richer and far more unpredictable. The plot revolves around two bank employees — Toh (Theeradej Wongpuapan), a man being considered for a long-awaited promotion, and Petch (Vachirawich Aranthanawong), a young banker drowning in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy.