CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Millions

Director

Danny Boyle

Year

2004

Rating

Reviewed by

José Ruiloba a.k.a. Morris

Review date

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

I can’t complain about good directors who have a certain style and always work around the same genre. After all, that’s what they like and they do a good job, right? But it’s also exciting when good directors want to try everything. The results may be mixed sometimes, but when they hit it out of the park, it’s a great experience. Such is the case with Danny Boyle, who continues to surprise by either doing such a hallucinatory drug movie as Trainspotting or a scary zombie flick as 28 Days Later... With his latest, Boyle enters kiddy territory, and the result is fantastic.

Damian (Alex Etel) and Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon) are brothers who just lost their mother and are moving to a new place with their father Ronnie (James Nesbitt) to start a new life. While in his self-made playground, Damian stumbles upon a bag full of money that apparently fell from the sky. He would like to give the money to the poor and needed, while Anthony can only think of investment. There’s one problem though: in one week Pounds will be history, as the Euro becomes the new English coin.

Millions is a movie for the whole family, although it isn’t even close to resemble Disney-fare or such. Remember, it’s Danny Boyle directing, so the movie is a little dark and twisted, yet this is the closest the director will ever get to make a children’s film.

It’s always been a fantasy to all of us what we would do if we suddenly became rich. This movie, interestingly enough, deals with that subject matter from the point of view of a kid. And what a kid! Damian is quite something: a child devoid of any trait of selfishness and with a heart as pure as can be. He knows everything about the Saints because he likes to read about them, and he keeps having appearances by some such as Claire of Assissi (smoking a cigarette and claiming to be the patron saint of television) or Saint Nicholas (who helps him deliver money to some “needy” Mormons). I won’t ruin which other saints appear or what they do, because that’s just one of the many whimsical pleasures the movie has to offer. Just know that the movie is neither overly religious nor overly irreverent. It’s somewhere in between.

The movie does not hide the fact that a lot of problems can arouse from two normal kids just suddenly having a lot of money in their hands. People get suspicious, the owner of the money is desperate to get it back, and the boys get in trouble when Damian donates a lot of money at a charity event in his school run by a nice lady named Dorothy (Daisy Donovan). Besides, they have only one week to spend, or change, the money. The ramifications resulting from all of these subplots are a pleasure, since Boyle and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce find the perfect equilibrium of not treating the kids either as cute little things or as unbelievably intelligent in their decisions. They’re just kids, and that’s that.

Alex Etel and Lewis Owen McGibbon are perfect in their roles. What a pair of natural, charming and spot-on kids they found! Especially Etel, he’s quite a find! The movie rests on his shoulders and he’s superb, with not a false moment and not a moment where we realize he’s acting. He delivers one of the best child performances of the year, if not the best. And the adult cast is very good as well.

And I just loved young Damian asking about a certain St. Maureen, and the way it pays off.

Imaginative, off-beat, and delightful... a real treat!

“God doesn’t rob banks!”

CriticSociety en Twitter | CriticSociety en Facebook

Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter