Monetary morals matter in ‘Millions’

MICHELE MARR

We’ve all fantasized about winning the lottery, or otherwise coming

into a windfall. We’ve also read stories about those who do, and

then, instead of magic, the money brings misery into their lives.

When I was a kid -- and this is bound to tell you just how long

ago that’s been -- one of my favorite television shows was the hit

series, “The Millionaire,” in which each week, a millionaire gave

$1-million checks to people he’d never met.

Sometimes the beneficiaries had a grand old time with their

unexpected fortune. Some improved their lives, but there were also

those who managed to make their lives, and even the lives of others,

miserable. Like tragedy, money has a way of bringing out both the

best and the worst in us.

At night, after watching “The Millionaire,” I’d lie awake

wondering if I had the character to handle that kind of money with

honor and integrity.

I still wonder that at times. Maybe that’s why when I read a

synopsis of the sparsely distributed Danny Boyle film “Millions,” I

had to go to see it.

In it, millions -- actually 265,000 British pounds -- falls into a

young boy’s cardboard fort. When he shows the money to his older

brother, the two boys have very different ideas about how to make the

best use of it.

The younger boy, following in his devoted Christian mother’s

footsteps, wants to give it to the poor. The older boy, who is smart

and clever and ever so worldly, has other things in mind.

With it playing in so few venues nationwide, we’re lucky to have

“Millions” showing at two theaters within six miles of us, to the

north at the United Artists Theaters at the Marketplace in Long

Beach, and to the south of us at the artsy Edwards South Coast

Village.

If you’re not a fan of Boyle’s “Trainspotting” or his “28 Days

Later,” don’t let that keep you away. This is a family film that

manages to captivate adults as much or more than kids.

On the surface, the plot sounds precariously like it’s been done

to death. A 7-year-old and a 9-year-old move to a new home -- in this

case, Manchester, England -- with their working-class father after

their mother dies.

Dad struggles with his grief and loneliness, and with his new role

as a single man and father. The boys miss their mother and try, at

times unsuccessfully, to cooperate with their father. And they

endeavor to fit in at their new school. It could be a version of any

number of Disney classics.

Even the sudden fortune, and what to do with it, is a theme that’s

been used in movies again and again.

But “Millions” has none of the hallmark sentimentality of a

traditional Disney production and none of the over-reaching political

correctness of some of Disney’s more recent features. This isn’t a

formula story that invites you to guess the ending.

In fact, if you’re like me, you’ll never think of the ending until

it arrives because you’ll be too caught up in each of the story’s

moments. Watching “Millions” made me aware of just how many

caricatures populate our movies and TV shows rather than characters.

Alex Etel, who plays 7-year-old Damian in this film, has been

compared by Roger Ebert to a young Macaulay Culkin, and by others to

Jerry Mathers. But Etel has none of the I’m-too-cute-ness of Culkin,

and in “Millions,” he has a toothier role than Mathers had with

Beaver Cleaver.

As with James Nesbitt (who plays Ronnie, Damian’s dad) and Lewis

McGibbon (the 9-year-old brother), you forget Etel is acting. I never

had the sense I knew what these characters were going to do next.

“Millions” has been called a fantasy-adventure and I guess I have

to concede that. No doubt, it’s an adventure. But the fantasy is so

tightly woven with the everyday that it’s easy to forget, or wonder

if, it’s fantasy at all. I suspect much of it is not meant to be.

This is true when St. Clare of Assisi, St. Francis and St. Peter,

among others, begin to drop into scenes, not as flimsy apparitions or

hazy dreams, but as effectual characters.

Saints play a big part in Damian’s world. He’s enthralled,

obsessed you might say, by saints in the way boys are obsessed with

sports figures. When Clare of Assisi, the first saint we meet, plops

down in his cardboard fort for a conversation, Damian greats her

with, “I know you. You’re Clare of Assisi, 1193 to 1253, the patron saint of television.”

The saints appear to the boy and talk to him. They move the story

forward, but with none of the campy self-consciousness of

television’s “Joan of Arcadia.” Their interaction with Damian is

matter-of-fact, a revelation of what the Roman Catholic Church has

always called the “communion of the saints,” saints being not only

the famous ones but also all who follow Christ.

As Damian stuffs envelopes for charities with some of the loot he

believes God has dropped in his lap, St. Peter comes by to, among

other things, advise him not to check the box on the envelopes giving

the charities permission to share his contact information with

others.

Peter reminded me of an Anglican priest I know who is

extraordinarily devoted and equally eccentric. He spoke tenderly,

off-handedly. He had the beard and the same amusement in his eyes, as

familiar with this world as heaven.

Damian has come into his wealth just 12 days before the pound

converts to Euros, giving the decision about what to do with the

money a frantic deadline.

I can see this story that takes place as Christmas approaches

becoming a Christmas tradition like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Like the

older classic, its heart is about hope and doing good for others.

“Millions” is one in a million and I hope you’ll catch it before

it gets away.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at michele@ soulfoodfiles.com.