”Millions” plays sweet without being sappy

Danny Boyle made “Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting,” “The Beach” and “28 Days Later,” a body of films that has introduced us to yuppie murderers, heroin junkies and flesh-eating zombies.

So it’s a surprise, and a deeply pleasant one at that, to watch “Millions,” in which the leading character is an endearing 7-year-old boy who sees and speaks with saints. Damian (Alexander Nathan Etel) does all this, I should add, in a chirrupy northern English accent.

Damian realizes he’s the only one who sees these saints. But he accepts the gift with matter-of-fact innocence, patiently tolerating the presence of his bossy, money-obsessed, 9-year-old brother, Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon), and enjoying the devotion of his widowed father, Ronnie (James Nesbitt).

The threesome has just moved to a neighborhood not far from Liverpool. And Damian tries to adapt to his new school. But he tends to alarm classmates and teachers with lurid tales of Saint Catherine, the one who was condemned to die on a spiked wheel and – never mind. He’s more at home in his cardboard house, erected by the railway line. That’s where he’s alone with his imagination, those visions and a large heavy bag filled with 229,000 pounds that suddenly comes crashing into his private hideout.

Anthony immediately wants to spend the haul and keep it a secret (“Taxes,” he explains). But Damian considers the cash a direct drop-off from God and therefore the domain of the poor, or, as he puts it, “the poo-ah.”

Witty, sweet and charming but never sappy, the movie joins the heady company of such extraordinary child-centered movies as “The 400 Blows,” “My Life as a Dog” and “Au Revoir Les Enfants” (“Goodbye, Children”). These are stories with children, but they set no limitations on who can watch. Adults and children alike can see “Millions,” as well as religious and nonreligious viewers.

Indeed, “Millions” is a spiritual movie in its own way: It invests its full stock in Damian, his visions and his outlook on the world.