Now that I have finally rented Millions from Zip.ca and had a chance to breathe it in, it’s official: Danny Boyle can direct anything. For every genre that Boyle has tried, and he’s almost tried them all, he has woven powerful stories driven by fascinating characters.
Millions takes place in the days leading up to the UK converting their currency from the £ to the €, so money is on everybody’s mind. When a gym bag full of pounds lands on young Damian’s cardboard fortress, the pious wee man thinks it’s a gift from God and decides that it should be given away to help the poor. His big brother Anthony has other plans and tries to use it in their pursuit of more material ends. It isn’t long before the real owner of the bag shows up looking for it, and he doesn’t have any noble intentions for it. Throughout the film, Damian is visited by a number of Saints who offer him advice and insight on what he should me doing with the money. While Damian isn’t crazy or anything, it is pretty clear this film has a very Christian bias. Although if it didn’t bother me, I can’t really see it bothering anyone.
I think the reason I wasn’t troubled by the gallery of Saints in this film was because of the clever style that Boyle used to tell his story – cool angles, suitable effects (I really liked the halos) made these Saints’ visits cooler than Tommy Gavin’s hangouts with Jesus in Rescue Me. Despite the darker reference there, this is a fun, lighthearted film populated with amusing characters (and Saints) hopping in and out of reality and imagination in such a way that you don’t even really care what’s real and what isn’t.
Just as Boyle has managed to show his aptitude for family films, he also helped change the way we look at zombie films with 28 Days Later, with the undead actually running rather than their trademark creepy walking. He also did a great job creating a virtually deserted London – something I might have previously thought impossible. There’s something so terribly morbid about London Bridge completely devoid of tourists and vendors, mini-bridges strewn about.
Boyle’s Sunshine was a masterstroke of character interaction, set against the hopeless backdrop of space – as a small band of scientists trudge through the void in an attempt to jumpstart the sun. Sunshine had everything that makes science fiction great, minus the laser pistols – and despite it’s uniqueness in perspective it still maintained Boyle’s style.
Danny Boyle can also claim responsibility for one of my favourite romantic comedies of all time: A Life Less Ordinary (loved it so much it was an engagement present for one of my oldest friends). A totally unique story involving Heaven as some kind of retro-style cosmic police force charged with restoring love on Earth, it’s one of my favourite roles for both Delroy Lindo and Holly Hunter.
And it goes without saying (but I can’t bring myself not to mention it) that Trainspotting was a quintessential film of the 90s, with a soundtrack and collection of characters that imprinted themselves onto the psyches of young people everywhere. Nobody can look at babies crawling on the ceiling and spinning their heads backwards the same way again.
So what does the future hold for Boyle as he rides yet another wave of fame from the success of the immensely entertaining Slumdog Millionaire? According to Wikipedia, he’s tackling a film about post-apartheid South Africa and also a film called Solomon Grundy about a baby who experiences an entire lifetime in just 6 days. Not much in the way of detail there, but as past experience would indicate, there’s nothing he can’t do.
[...] Danny Boyle made “Millions”! [...]