Movies: Danny Boyle’s Millions

With ten Academy Award nominations, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is poised to win a bunch of Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Almost all the media coverage, and many of the people who see the movie, recognize Boyle as director of some powerful and dark films, including Trainspotting and 28 Days Later.

Lost in the shuffle is Millions, a gem that Boyle directed in 2004. It shares some of the same themes as the latest movie, but received less attention, at the box office and from critics.

Millions, like Slumdog, is a little movie with big ideas. The main character is a child, seven-year-old Damian, who with his older brother Anthony stumbles upon stolen money – a bag of British pounds – only to discover that the deadline for converting pounds to Euros is approaching. Right around Christmas, the money will be worthless. So the money must be given away, spent, saved, exchanged, destroyed – all the complications that surround money, but things that are still less complicated than the people who have it or want it or need it.

Damian is obsessed with saints, and along the way his adventures include cameo appearances by St. Peter, St. Clare, St. Francis, St. Nicholas, and St. Joseph (at a school Christmas pageant). Yes, this is a Christmas movie, in the best way possible. It asks in a light-hearted, funny and heartbreaking way for us to think about the real value of people and money, about faith and religion, and about love and miracles.

Near the end of the movie, Damian dreams about talking with his dead mother. In a world full of movies with such conversations between the dead and living, this one is as touching as any:

Damian: I know you’re only a dream. But I don’t care. It’s nice to see you. Even if you’re just a dream.…The money just makes everything worse.…I’ve got something for you.   From Readers Digest. Here. You may have already won ten thousand pounds.…Please will you talk to me?

Mum: Five minutes. Okay?…Now, don’t interrupt. I’m dead. I know what I’m talking about, okay?…You need to use conditioner on your hair. Your dad won’t think of that, but it makes all the difference.….Me? You are not to worry about me. You have been worrying about me, haven’t you? I’m fine….Anthony. He seems to have taken it better than you. But he hasn’t. He’s got a good heart, he just…he doesn’t know where it is. Damian? He’s going to need you. Be good to him.

Damian: Dad doesn’t believe.

Mum: Doesn’t believe what?

Damian: Any of it. Anything. He mustn’t do or he wouldn’t. Couldn’t you talk to him?

Mum: He can’t see me.

Damian: Oh….Is it because of the money?

Mum: In a way. The money makes it harder to see what’s what. You know that already….Never really win with those things anyway. You just end up with books about the American railways…It’s her isn’t it? Your dad and her? Damian. You know how complicated the money was? Well, people are even more complicated. You need to remember that there is nearly always enough good around to be going on with. You’ve just got to have a bit of faith, you know. And if you’ve got faith in people that makes them stronger. And you, you’ve got enough to sort all three of you out….Hey? That’s why
I’m counting on you.

Damian: I haven’t really been worried about you. I’ve just been missing you.

Mum: That’s allowed.

Damian: Are you really a saint?

Mum: Well, the criteria’s very strict. It’s not just a case of doing good and all that. You do have to do an actual miracle.

Damian: So…

Mum: I’m in there. Course I am.

Damian: What was your miracle?

Mum: Don’t you know? It was you.

So if you like Slumdog Millionaire, and are wondering what else Danny Boyle has done, Millions is certainly the place to start.