Hey folks, Harry here with that man of logic and rationale... a man of reason and intellect. The great Copernicus says that a movie about saints and children is Danny Boyle's most impressive film. How on earth is this possible? Well, read and see...
MILLIONS
After movies about killers, heroin addicts, and zombies, naturally Danny
Boyle's next subject is... saints and children.
I guess saints are kind of like zombies. Except less fueled by an
insatiable hunger for people-meat, and more of a burning, burning spirit
of the Lord. Ok, to be honest there really is no way to sex up a movie
about saints and children. Well, maybe if it had Michael Jackson in it,
but this one doesn't.
Going in, I had some amount of faith in Danny Boyle, but... children? The
road from genre-defining genius to cliché-peddling has-been is paved with
children. Just ask Kevin Smith. There is nothing wrong with kids per se,
but there is a metric shitload wrong with trading on our genetic
predisposition to think they are cute.
Any time a studio finds easy buttons to push, they blindly mash them like
they are keys on a cash register. They've taken the kid trick to the bank
so many times that this is widely reviled as the bulwark of desperate
writers. Why is it that the first thing that dying TV franchises do is
add a cute kid? Has this ever worked? Ever met anyone who likes
Scrappy-Doo or Batmite? (You can argue that Batmite is not a kid, but you
are going to lose. He's functionally equivalent.)
Yet somehow, against the odds, in MILLIONS Danny Boyle and writer Cottrell
Boyce (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE) have managed to create a movie that feels
fresh and original, yet somehow familiar and timeless. The story follows
eight year-old Damian (Alex Etel) and his older brother Anthony (Lewis
McGibbon) who live with their father (James Nesbitt) in Manchester after
their Mom has died. Damian has retreated into his own fantasy universe --
one in which he sees and has conversations with saints who seem to have
stepped right out of medieval paintings. When a bag of loot falls into
his lap, he naturally assumes that it is heaven-sent, and that he should
spend it as a saint would... to help people in need. His slightly less
naïve brother reacts more like most kids would if they had just hit the
jackpot --- who cares about charity when you can have an infinite amount
of cool stuff and buy popularity at school? The
monkey wrench thrown in to ratchet up the hijinks is that the loot must
all be spent within a few days, before the pounds become worthless when
Britain switches over to the Euro.
This film demands to be discussed the context of the BREWSTER'S MILLIONS
oeuvre (I've always wanted to say that). That concept -- spend the money
or lose it -- practically has its own genetic code: it respawns every 20
years or so. We've had the Cecil B. DeMille version, the Fatty Arbuckle
version, the British versions, the chick version, and even the poor Negro
gets rich version -- I'm surprised it took someone so long to make the
kids version. While this movie is completely different than BREWSTER'S
MILLIONS, I suspect that the seed of the idea came from the Brewster's
lineage, and that the title is a nod to this. Either that, or they
figured a title reflecting the actual amount the kids find, A FEW HUNDRED
THOUSAND, just wouldn't put asses in the seats.
Somehow the cross-pollination of a stale idea with hackneyed subject
matter has given rise to a movie that is not only watchable, but is the
best movie so far of 2005! This is a testament to the genius of Danny
Boyle's direction, Cottrell Boyce's writing, and the acting of the
entire cast, but especially Alex Etel. The youngster delivers a
surprisingly mature performance as a kid ebulliently and innocently
navigating a wonderland that is starting to spin out of control. He's
cute without being cloying, and funny without being farcical. In fact
he's hilarious. In his divine visitors he has a nearly inexhaustible
supply of straight men to play off of, and he hits the comic timing like
he has been doing this for years. A fair fraction of the credit also goes
to Boyce, who's script is so densely packed with wit that at some point
during the screening I started to time the mean interval between audience
crack-ups. During the peak of the proceedings, the jokes were flying at
the furious pace of about one a minute. That is hard to sustain, but
brilliant script and note-perfect performances of the kids never
disappoint.
But maybe the largest share of the credit for the success of MILLIONS goes
to Danny Boyle. The film has its own unmistakable style that, like the
mind of an 8 year-old, seems to have only one foot planted in reality,
with the other whimsically kicking into the realm of imagination. Whether
it is the hyper-powered color palette he uses, the mindbending scene
transitions, or the Pythonesqe interventions of the saints, Boyle never
lets the movie lapse into normalcy. In retrospect, I should have expected
as much from a man that brought us turd-diving.
Even though the subject of the movie is kids, and the spirit of it evokes
a kind of childlike discovery, this movie is aimed more at adults than it
is at children. Kids might not understand the religious jokes, or
comprehend the themes of rediscovering lost innocence. And the youngest
kids might be scared of a threatening criminal that has his own designs on
the lucre. Overall though, there are so many levels to the movie that
there is guaranteed to be something for everyone to enjoy.
Call me sacrilegious, but I am more impressed with Danny Boyle after
seeing this movie than after any of his other films. He's always been a
brilliant and innovative director. Even his "failures," A LIVE LESS
ORDINARY, and THE BEACH, are imaginative and interesting, even if they
aren't his best work. But what he has succeeded at up to this point has
seems almost easy compared to MILLIONS. Heroin addicts and zombies
practically write themselves. Children are a minefield. But now that
he's taken on the challenge and delivered far beyond my expectations, he
has truly moved into the elite director category. A good director knows
how to tell certain stories well. But with MILLIONS, Boyle has shown that
he one of the true greats -- a director who can tackle nearly anything and
take himself and the audience to amazing and unexpected places.
Maybe Danny Boyle wants to hitch his wagon to that Harry Potter gravy
train, and this movie is an audition for that gig. Hey if a Mexican porn
director can make the best Potter movie ever, sign me up for the Boyle
version!
-Copernicus
Copernicus and All Denizens of AICN Stress Your Attendence At Local Screenings of ONG BAK
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