Millions-synopsis

Millions synopsis by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Britain is about to enter the Euro zone. Special secure trains criss-cross the country loaded with old money on its way to the incinerator, and new money on its way to the bank.

Meanwhile, the Cunningham family - Dad (Ronnie) and his two sons, Damian (8) and Anthony (10) - have just moved to a new house. Anthony is very materialistic and is interested in the investment potential of their new home. Damian is very pious and dreams of saints.

One morning, Damian is in his cardboard den - or hermitage as he calls it - down by the railway, when he is almost squashed flat by a huge flying sports bag. This turns out to be full of money. £229,320. Unfortunately it's all in sterling so it is only good for another 12 days, when the old currency will become worthless.

Damian is convinced that the money has come from God (who else would have that kind of money?) and that it is some kind of sign or challenge to him to do good. Unfortunately he makes the great mistake of telling Anthony all about it. Anthony understands money a lot better than Damian does. So while Damian goes about trying to find poor people to help with the money, Anthony goes on a spree. At school he buys power, influence, body guards, along with a new Game Boy, SP2, BMX Shogun Nude bike, and... well the list goes on all the way up to a house, which he tries to buy for his investment portfolio.

During the course of this orgy of spending we realise that the boy's mother has recently died and perhaps suss that the extremity of their characters is perhaps a reaction to their bereavement.

As it turns out, it's just as difficult for Anthony to spend the money on himself as it is for Damian to save the World. The two boys become increasingly frustrated and increasingly conspicuous. They come to the attention of a community policeman and Damian even goes so far as to try and enlist the help of the lady charity worker who comes to the school collecting small change for WaterAid. Her name is Dorothy.

Anthony stops him just in time. He knows that the money has come from a notorious and well- organised robbery which involved sneaking a man onto one of the money trains and having him discreetly chuck suitcases of cash out at various slow bends along the way.

What he should perhaps have realised is that the original robbers would be looking for their missing money.

It's not long before Damian's railway side hermitage comes under the gaze of a terrifying figure, one of the robbers. Anthony manages to put the man off the scent briefly but by the time the school nativity play comes around, the man is on their trail and Damian who is playing St Joseph has to make a getaway while the three kings are singing their song. In his place, the real St Joseph miraculously appears in his place to cover Damian's tracks.

Damian tries to hide in the old house. But - alone and terrified - he hears someone at the door and screams. It's his Dad, who has worked out where Damian has gone. And so Dad - to Anthony's fury - finds out about the money. Even worse, Dad tells Dorothy.

And so Dad, Dorothy and the boys head off to Manchester to change as much of the money as possible. A growing intimacy develops between Damian and Dorothy and between Dorothy and Dad. A new (wealthy) family seems to be forming.

Meanwhile, however, the robber has sussed everything and warns Damian that he will be coming to collect the newly-changed cash late that night. With no choice, Damian agrees to help him, but keeps this from his family and Dorothy.

That night, the family and Dorothy celebrate the arrival of the new money by bringing in all their goods to the living room and they paper the walls with leftover, now-defunct £10 notes. Damian begins to see that his Dad and Dorothy are starting to fall in love, which only adds to the stress he's already feeling as a result of the robber's impending visit.

Later that night, the doorbell rings, waking Damian. A queue of people, all drawn by tales of Damian's generosity, has formed and a line of beggars and charity workers snakes from their doorstep right down to the end of the street, all asking for money. While Dad tries to deal with them, Damian creeps away, taking the remaining money down to the railway where he intends to burns it. Unaware that Damian has gone, the burglar creeps into the spare room where he encounters a surprised policeman, who promptly arrests him.

At the railway line, as Damian watches the notes burn, he is visited by his mother. Damian is despondent but she reassures him and gives him some advice for the future. She reveals that she is now a saint and that Damian was her miracle. As she kisses him goodbye, Damian turns to see that Anthony has been watching. It wasn't just a vision; Anthony saw her too.

The next day, the family mull over the events of the night before. It turns out that Dorothy, Dad and Anthony have each pocketed a wedge of the new money for themselves. Shamed by Damian's reproving looks, they pool their resources and discover that they still have quite a bit left. With the money, they invest in charities around the globe - buying a big magical ending for the film.

mir•a•cle (m r -k l) n. 1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: "Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves" (Katherine Anne Porter). 2. One that excites admiring awe. "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

A USER'S GUIDE TO SAINTS. #1: NICHOLAS OF MYRA (UNKNOWN TO C 246 BCE)

The Bishop Of Myra, which is now modern Turkey, Nicholas was a very kind and generous man, most famous for the way in which he helped the needy. This aid could take the form of money, as it when he anonymously gave three bags of gold to a father who was so poor he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Perhaps Nicholas' best-known miracle was the resurrection of three young boys who were murdered, chopped up and pickled in a vat of brine. This led not only to the creation of the Santa Claus legend, but also to his becoming, amongst other things, the patron saint of children, coopers, grooms, mariners, pawnbrokers, poor people, shoe shiners, spinsters and students.

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