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Many adults dismiss children’s literature and film, and a lot that passes for such is deserving of contempt. But fewer genres are harder to pull off well. Just look at the difference between James M. Barrie’s own Peter Pan and the recent Barrie bio-pic, Finding Neverland. Or the first hour or so of Danny Boyle’s Manchester-set Millions and its dispiritingly conventional dénouement. On the one hand, genuine wonder and magic; on the other, fake innocence and platitudes. The best children’s movies start with a child, and in this Boyle is blessed by Alexander Nathan Etel. As Damien, whose mother has recently died, he makes a convincing religious zealot, as earnest in helping the unfortunate as he is in describing the tortures of the martyrs to his grossed-out classmates. And well he should be, since the saints visit him and offer advice, including a dope-smoking St. Clare. When a gym bag full of pounds drops on Damien’s cardboard retreat by the railroad tracks, he finds that giving away money can cause more problems than it solves. Boyle touches on the blasphemy of Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana and Neil Jordan’s The Butcher Boy but quickly skeedaddles with CGIed whimsy. The adults take over in the end, but by then the kids have gotten their money’s worth. (98 minutes)
BY PETER KEOUGH
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