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Director Danny Boyle burst onto the scene in 1996 with Trainspotting, a film about drug addiction that both featured and induced nausea. His most recent movie, "28 Days Later," was an old-fashioned zombie flick that delighted in the various ways you could finally kill off the undead. So it's a huge surprise that Boyle's latest effort is the family-friendly Millions.

Anthony and Damian are two brothers who've recently lost their mother and are now moving with their dad (James Nesbitt, Bloody Sunday) into a new house in a new subdivision. Anthony is the practical older brother who's excited about the upcoming conversion of the pound into the euro, just for the economic possibilities it offers. Damian is the soft-hearted younger brother who imagines conversations with various saints and wonders how to be good. One day, Damian decides to take the moving boxes out to the nearby field and build a fort. There he plays with his older brother and communes with the saints. That is, until a strange miracle happens and a bag full of money literally drops out of the sky. Damian immediately begins to think of how he can share the loot. Anthony immediately begins to count it.

What follows is a delightful and strangely thought-provoking story. Anthony is keen to use the money to invest in property and gain influence at his local school. Damian would rather give the money away, anonymously if possible. But he's confronted by the fact that there don't seem to be any poor people in his new neighborhood. So he finds a few homeless people and takes them out for pizza. But spending the money that way will take too long he reasons, so he starts randomly asking people on the street if they're poor. It's a fascinating question. How would you answer if a young boy asked if you were poor? What criteria would you use?

Damian gets a greater opportunity when a woman comes to visit his school. She opens her talk with a different question: "Who feels sorry for poor people?" Of course, every little hand shoots up, and she wryly responds, "Correct answer." It turns out that she's there to raise money for building wells in Africa, and Damian drops a huge roll of bills into her "offering plate." That sets in motion a series of events that is both entertaining and profound.

The movie rides on the back of its littlest actor, and nine-year-old Alex Etel, in his movie debut, is up to the challenge. He has the wide eyes of any screen moppet, but he also has great personality. Maybe it's because he reminds me of myself (I, too, built a box fort in a nearby field as a boy), but I think it's more than that. He's such a pleasing contrast to the know-it-all, done-it-all kids we usually see in family films. The supporting cast is also fine, especially Nesbitt as the dad doing his best and Daisy Donovan as the woman who enters the family's life.

Every Danny Boyle film has a strong visual style, and here he combines some remarkable stop-motion animation (the building of a house piece by piece; children playing on the playground) with striking widescreen compositions. Not all of the movie's visual tricks are effective, but it's never boring. I was trying to imagine how a young boy might respond to "Millions." It has a bright, colorful mise en scene that will certainly captivate the younger set. More importantly, its protagonist is a delightful character who's both their age and thinks like they do, unlike so many precocious child characters who seem like 50-year-olds in tiny bodies. Still, the film isn't your typical kids flick, filled with fart jokes and unending slapstick. It actually takes time to pause and reflect, to examine the motives of its characters. For kids raised on Nickelodeon and Shrek, that could be a shock. There might also be an awkward moment for parents when one of the saints lights up a joint, though I can't recall anything else offensive besides a few swear words.

On the other hand, the movie is a fantastic springboard to a marvelous post-film discussion, no matter what the age of your group. Boyle has a knack for ethical questions. Even the mediocre The Beach pondered how the idea of Utopia can so quickly sour in the face of reality. Millions is a much more interesting film, one that asks the simple question of what we would do with half a million dollars but also explores the nature of charity and poverty. Furthermore it asks how we balance our own happiness with that of those around us and those thousands of miles away. And though the movie pokes some fun at both the imagery of saints and familiar Bible stories (it provides a secular explanation for the miracle of loaves and fishes), it's also that rare film that takes religious faith seriously and wonders how it would act in our modern world. If its final message is oh-so-familiar--have faith in other people, recognize the miracles around you--it leaves open vast possibilities for other approaches, other conversations. Don't miss it. 

J. Robert Parks  3/19/2005