Damian, a shy 7-year-old still grieving over the death of his mother, has been taken by a friend of his dad's to the Manchester, England, department store where his mum used to work. Left alone for a moment, he feels mournful, bereft--and then panicky, when he thinks he has been deserted again. In an ordinary movie, the situation might call for a freshet of tears to guarantee an audience's instant pity. But in this film, Millions, with this young actor, Alex Etel, subtlety is the key. His eyes mist up, just enough to cue the attentive viewer to the desperation of the sweetest child in the English Midlands.
Directors of movies with kid actors have to be parent and disciplinarian, coach and coaxer to their young stars. But there are limits to how much children can be helped. And as movies with kid protagonists become more popular, and our understanding of children's psyches becomes more sophisticated, child actors are asked to carry a lot more of the emotional freight of a story. How then to find and direct kids?
Ask Danny Boyle, the English director of Millions, a nimble, touching parable about the mystical visions of a boy on whom a sack of stolen money has literally fallen. (He thinks it came from heaven.) "You can't put tears in their eyes for a weepy scene," says Boyle, making his first kids' film (after the R-rated trio Trainspotting, The Beach and 28 Days Later). "You have to actually find out if they can do it. And if they can't, then you do the scene without the tears." In the department-store scene it was better, more delicate and potent, without.
Millions, which opens next week, is one of the best reasons to go to the movies this year and a reminder of how affecting a film can be when a magical child takes hold of it. Film people are not immune to sentiment, but they make pictures with kids because, well, they hope a sack of money will fall on them. A big project (like the Harry Potter series) can earn zillions, and even the smaller ones do O.K. Because of Winn-Dixie, about a motherless girl (AnnaSophia Robb) and her pet dog, was made for an estimated $15 million and pulled in $13 million in its Presidents' Day weekend debut--and it's not even very good. Dear Frankie, a Scottish drama about a fatherless deaf boy (Jack McElhone), has been charming festival audiences and opens this week.
If producers have hopes of cash coming in, they also know there will be less going out. Some Hollywood stars make $20 million a picture. First-time kid stars typically get union scale: about $20,000. Some child actors might inch into the six-figure range. It's only the very rare tot, like Dakota Fanning (see box), who makes more than $1 million.