Here's a link to a little write-up of mine about the movie "Millions." I would consider it less of an engagement with the themes of the film, and more of a bit of an Introduction to anticipate your experience. Have you seen it? Follow along, and let's discuss.
Kelly Wilson
Musings http://kellyjwilson.blogspot.com/2011/11/millions-2004.html
Unfortunately that link no longer works. It seems the blog has been shut down so you can't read that review. Rather than waste this thread I'll post my own review written after I first saw the film about ten years ago:
Millions
Little Damian dotes on saints. He has memorized a book about their lives and he converses with them casually when they appear to him, as they often do. His brother Anthony is quite a different sort: he seems ready at 12 to take over management of a hedge fund. So their reactions differ when a large fortune is literally dumped on them. Anthony sets about investigating investment opportunities while Damian seeks to bestow his windfall on the needy, if he can only find some in the middle-class housing development into which the family has moved after the recent death of the boys' mother. Anthony swears Damian to secrecy about the money but cannot resist bestowing tokens of largesse on a few of his own buddies. Meanwhile someone else is looking very hard for what the boys have found. The situation grows ever more complex till Damian finally resolves it.
'Millions' is not exactly a religious film though Damian is a very religious boy. It is not exactly a fantasy though the boundary between Damian's visions and reality is porous in places. It is best compared with Night Shyalaman's early film 'Wide Awake' whose young protagonist embarked on a search for God. The two young actors are perfect in their respective roles and the adult actors perform well too. One of the reviewers on IMDb said "This has got to be the best feel good movie I have ever seen."
I will second that.
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Footnote:
Frank Cottrell Boyce, author of the book and scriptwriter of the film, assumed that the UK would join other European nations in adopting the Euro as its currency. But real Britons balked. Fueled by imperial nostalgia, fear of assimilation into a European superstate and certain practical economic doubts, 'eurosceptics' mounted a rearguard action that grew in strength until Tony Blair caved in early 2004. As of today the pound sterling still stands in splendid isolation (though sensible cents have replaced the shillings, farthings and ha'pennies of days gone by*).
So the frantic changeover day that forms the backdrop of the film did not in fact dawn. We can regard this as just another of the fantasy elements in the film or we can assume the action takes place a few years hence when some future government acknowledges that the sun really has set on the British empire. When (if) that happens Britain will have accepted its place as part of Europe. Only Danes and Swedes will be left outside the circle, clutching their kroner in the northern night.
* Note that the charity lady asked the children to deposit "two pences".
What ever happened to "tuppence"?
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PS (August 2015) It seems I was less than prescient about the future of the euro. I'm sure most Brits now feel they are well out of it.