talking to saints in north england

Quick post: I saw this sweet movie last night.  Millions  brings all of us back to that moment, at nine or ten years old, when we  mused intensely, with an intensity others called weird, on BIG questions.  The small protagonist of this film, Damian, talks to saints as if they were his drunk old uncles. With their hints, he spends most of the film trying hard "to be good," to do what he thinks is right. I'm suddenly curious if this is what  Danny Boyle, the director, was once like, long before the Trainspotting years.

Though the trailer might make it seem a little saccharine, it's worth the glimpse, and the film  feels not sentimental but honestly emotional. Also funny, whimsical and entirely new: a distant cousin, of course,  to  Joan of Arcadia (consoling me a little about the latter, which has betrayed me these last weeks by opting to become a faux Buffy.) 

I'll leave it to more cinematically-minded people, like Rachel, whose  review and meditation on the film is well worth reading.  and to critics like Manohla Dargis to identify all the elements that make it work.  I also want to shout out to Dargis, who like me almost didn't graduate Hunter High School in 1979 because of the math Regents: her writing here, and often in her work for the Times, is lyrical , as when  she outlines the movie's premise:

Damian has moved into new digs, mostly, it seems, because their old home is where once upon a time they lived with a loving wife and mother. Recently deceased, the missing woman hangs over this woeful threesome like a sigh. Her absence shapes their days and nights, driving Ronnie to cuddle the pillows in his big empty bed and sending his children deep into worlds of their own making, one shaped by pre-adolescent tremors, the other by ecstatic faith.

Alex Etel, who plays Damian,  makes Haley Joel Osment look like a cereal box image. (Not for nothing does Salon call Etel "unreasonably appealing." )   The wild poet locked in this small pre-monk is just waiting for the next movie. Or rather, the wild young activist, as the film's fantastic ending suggests. As Jehanne Darc knew, all that truck with saints can drive you into the future.

Comments

[Annie]

My husband and I try and see a film at least once a week. We saw "Millions" right after it came out. Honestly, it's the best movie I've seen in, well, I'm not sure how long. I've been meaning to blog about it myself. I'm so glad you wrote this.

I think we may have to go see it again. But not this week. It's P's turn to pick and I know he wants to see "The Hitchhiker's Guide."