The Frame

When I first started watching this, I was like, “whoa, this is sort of weird.” Then I picked up the case and noticed that it was directed by Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Trainspotting), and then the weirdness all made sense. The story is relatively simple: Damian, a young idealistic boy in Manchester, finds a duffel bag with thousands of pound notes in the field behind his family’s new house, and thinks it’s a gift from God. He shows the money to his brother, who wants to spend it on themselves, but our young idealist (who has visions of saints) wants to give it to the poor. A worthy goal, but as he starts handing wheelbarrowfulls of money out to the neighbors, the charity representative at his school, and even welcomes the creepy guy who shows up at his improvised fort in the field, suspicions rise. Adding to the pressure is the fact that in the story, the UK is about to make the switch from pounds to euros, and the children’s millions are soon going to be worthless. Now, this could be a really routine family film, asking what’s really important in life, money or family, bringing out all sorts of ethical questions about whether they should keep the money, report it to the police, give it to the poor, etc. But in Danny Boyle’s hands it’s not routine at all…it’s also not really a family film. It’s extremely fantastic in presentation, with Damian’s visions of saints and flights of fancy. The manner in which he discovers how the money really came to be in the field (the robbery of a train on a nearby track) is more punk-action style than anything else. It’s a really hard film to describe, and even now I’m not sure I’d say I thought it was really good. It was certainly not what I expected, and it kept me interested and fascinated all the way through, so I suppose there’s that. And there’s a joy of watching Alex Etel as Damian…he’s really brilliant.
Above Average