Growing up in my neighborhood, the greatest day was when someone purchased a new refrigerator. When that Maytag truck pulled up at a home, kids could be seen gazing out their living room windows in excitement. We knew once the unpacking had finished, a large cardboard box would be placed outside of that home.

A box meant so much to us kids. We would take them and drag them off into the nearby woods and use them to make the ultimate fort.

Or we would hop inside and have a friend duct tape the box around us. Then we’d tumble down a nearby hill, bouncing up and down inside the box, loving every second of it.

Being a kid meant finding satisfaction out of the smallest things. What seems like waste to us now was a ticket to weeks of enjoyment as a child.

Director Danny Boyle understands this. His “Millions” channels childhood like no other – it thinks like a child, feels like a child, sees the world as a child and dreams up scenes that only a child could.

Yet the film is not written or directed by children. These are grown men who have never lost the ability to imagine. This is a film about imagination, about doing good for others and about letting go of the burden of guilt.

Newcomer Alexander Nathan Etel plays Damian, a good-hearted English 7-year-old who has an interesting obsession. He studies saints – so much that their ghosts often visit him.

His brother Anthony, a cynical 11-year-old, is not as interested in miracles or religion – he’s more concerned about what will happen to the pound once England makes the move to the euro.

Their father is struggling with moving the boys into a new home, but more importantly, moving them away from the home which used to be occupied by their entire family – including their deceased mother.

“Millions” plays eerily similar to Jim Sheridan’s recent Irish masterpiece “In America.” A family must struggle through a recent move to a very different area, but they’re really running from a tragedy they cannot shake. A change of scenery cannot erase a lifetime of loss in a loved one, so something else must arrive to get them there.

In “In America,” we had Djimon Hounsou as a dying neighbor. He was the catalyst who got the family to relive the loss of one of their children. Instead of a dying neighbor, “Millions” uses a Nike bag full of cash that literally falls out of the sky and lands on top of Damian’s box fort.

Damian wants to give the money to the poor, but keeps running into problems in the process. His brother has a different approach – investing in real estate to get a higher return on their cash – it’s called equity, he tells us. They struggle with hiding the cash from their father and a nasty criminal who claims the money is his.

“Millions” has a near perfect script. It even gets the little things right – how to successfully use product placement and the use of an ingenious plot device. Something as simple as a bag of money leads the audience to feelings of pleasure, insecurity, laughter, sadness, hope and failure.

“Millions” is by far Danny Boyle’s best film, with each shot executed carefully. Older characters are shot from lower angles, putting the audience into a child’s shoes. Characters wear bright colors – grass and other natural surroundings ooze a deeply saturated green, emphasizing the colorful feeling most children see in nature.

Each of these production elements is balanced perfectly to avoid conflict with the story. While Boyle’s visuals in “The Beach” seemed to distract from the story a bit, he’s figured out a way to use visual imagery to support a strong script in “Millions.”

“Millions” was given a ridiculous PG-13 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America Ratings board, probably due to a scene when Damian asks his brother what women’s nipples are for. Or, it could have been for a scene in which a nativity play is performed in their elementary school – a blatant crime in today’s politically correct America.

This is a movie that shows what happens through giving. It’s a movie that spurs the imagination. It’s a movie that reminds us of that little thing called “belief.”

“Millions” is a movie for adults who have forgotten about the magic of childhood. If I had children, I’d ignore the MPAA and take them to see this film.

That’s if I could get them out of that cardboard box, of course.