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Millions-part 3
PART THREE: DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY The revelation that the money is stolen comes as a bombshell to the impressionable Damian. "I thought it was a miracle," he laments, "but it was just robbed." Nevertheless, as well as providing the impetus for the story, the stolen money gave the filmmakers licence to explore the idea of money: what it is, what it represents and what it can really buy. During pre-production, Broadbent was intrigued by the way children would deal with these questions. "When we were doing the auditions, the casting director asked quite a lot of the kids what they'd do if they had a million pounds," he recalls. "The responses were amazing. Some had no concept of that amount of money, some said they'd buy ten CDs and others said they'd buy a car, or an island, but very few had any real sense of what that sort of money means." Through the two boys, Boyle's film plays out society's push-and-pull attitude towards money, to great comic effect. "Damian simply wants to give it away to good causes, charities and poor people," says Hauptman, "and so he spends his time stuffing huge amounts of money in poor people's letterboxes or charity boxes. Anthony, being that bit older, is more aware of avarice and greed and what money can really buy." Neither, however, gets their way. Notes Boyle, "The film shows how difficult it is for both of the boys to achieve their wishes, either to spend it quickly on consumer luxuries or desirables or on the other hand to redistribute it." Perhaps unsurprisingly, during the pitching stage, Cottrell Boyce found it harder to explain Damian's attitude to the money than his older brother's. "To me," he says, "Damian seems like a perfectly normal child. But I'd have to sit in these script meetings with film executives who wanted me to explain why he was as he was. Loads of kids are like him, they talk to themselves all the time, they're not quite living in the same world as us and often think they're a knight, a footballer or a pilot. In this case, Damian just happens to think he's a saint." In creating Anthony, Cottrell Boyce presents an equally motivated child, albeit one from a completely different sphere. But although they seem to be extreme, they are inextricably bound by the loss of their mother and together present an almost complete, tough-to-break unit. "They've both got that fantastic thing you have when you're about eight or ten years of age," he says, "when you're at the top end of your school, before you go to big school and you've got that feeling of being able to do absolutely anything. Anthony is kind of greedy and wicked, but there's something very attractive and endearing about his swagger. Damian's got a similar swagger, but it's because he thinks he's the equal of Saint Clare or Saint Nicholas!" It is this richness of personality that gives Millions its depth. "When you originally describe the script, it could easily sound like some fluffy little British movie that will tug at your heartstrings and then make you giggle," says Cottrell Boyce. "But Danny has made it so much bigger. He was involved enough to take on all its themes, like the saints, heaven and money. The film looks at what money can actually do. The two boys really come to understand what a vast and complicated thing money is and how it completely takes them over and kind of swamps them. What the boys are really wishing for is something that can't be bought. It's interesting to have a story that allows you to harness all the excitement of money and all the danger it brings." Boyle agrees that this is very much the heart of the film. "I think the spirit of the film is about trying to see if goodness is possible in, not so much a cynical world, but one in which people are very self-protecting," he says. "Like Britain especially. It was to try and see if it's possible to make a film about an act of generosity." A USER'S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #4: ST ROCH (1295-1327) Roch was a 14th Century French nobleman who adopted the causes of the poor at al young age and contracted the plague during a pilgrimage. Despite effecting several miraculous cures, Roch contracted the disease himself and was nursed back to life by a dog that fed him food stolen from its master's table. On his return home, he was arrested on espionage charges and, after being tended to by an angel for five years, died in jail. He is, rather surprisingly, the patron saint of dogs, but if you're a bachelor, diseased cattle, an invalid, a plague sufferer, a surgeon or a tile-maker, he's definitely worth a prayer or two. |
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