Bovie Movie

British director Richard Laxton’s allegorical ensemble comedy Grow Your Own concerns a most unusual therapy doled out to local refugee families in London: an analyst allots a parcel of land to each group, and asks its kinfolk to farm vegetables there. Naturally, a myriad of complications arise - from a young man named Kenny (Alan Williams, who refuses to comply with the given ordinance and paint his hut red, to Miriam (Diveen Henry), a widow who believes that the spirit of her late husband has returned in the form of one of the gardeners, Little John (Eddie Marsan), to a Chinese immigrant, Kung Sang (Benedict Wong) whose wife died when packed into a shipping container. Matters grow increasingly sticky and complex for everyone when a cell phone company turns up and insists on planting an obtrusive mast in the middle of the land.

Director Danny Boyle revisits a theme from his Shallow Grave and Trainspotting days — greed — but focuses on a much younger protagonist with this comedy drama. Millions opens with recent widower Ronnie (James Nesbitt) moving his two precocious pre-pubescent sons to the suburbs. Missing his mother and the comforts of his old neighborhood, the young Damian (Alex Etel) builds a cardboard-box fort on the outskirts of the suburb, where one day his placid introvert existence is literally crushed by a giant gym bag full of thousands of pounds’ worth of cash. Less concerned with the origin of the money than with how to spend it, Damian and his older brother, Anthony (Lewis McGibbon), decide to keep it a secret from their father, which becomes an increasingly tricky proposition as the days pass. His conscience getting in the way of his spending, Damian debates the ethics of his ill-gotten gains with a handful of imaginary saints, and begins to try to spend his cash a little more altruistically. But his charitable deeds inadvertently attract the attention of a mysterious, threatening man who’s desperate to get his hands on the money. Marking a distinct change of pace for Boyle after the horror film 28 Days Later, Millions world-premiered at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival.