"Billy Elliot" is the story of an 11-year-old working-class boy, a coal miner's son from County Durham, who nurses the ambition to become a ballet dancer, and the obstacles he faces in realising that ambition. The main obstacle is that he comes from a social background where such an ambition is regarded as incomprehensible. In British working-class communities, which place a high premium on loyalty to one's class background and to traditional ideas of masculinity, there is a widespread stereotype that ballet is only for the well-to-do middle classes and that male ballet dancers are all effeminate homosexuals. Billy's widowed father Jackie and his older brother Tony both hold these views strongly and are horrified when they discover that Billy has secretly been taking dancing lessons. Even when Billy's passion for ballet has won Jackie over, there are still obstacles to be faced. The film is set at the time of the 1984-1985 miners' strike. Jackie and Tony are on strike and facing hardship, and there is no money to pay for Billy's lessons.
There are certain similarities between this film and "Brassed Off" from four years earlier, another film about the miners' strike and about working-class people finding fulfilment through cultural activities. There are, however, also a couple of differences. "Brassed Off" was about the members of a brass band; unlike ballet the brass band movement has always been regarded as part of the working-class culture of Northern England. "Brassed Off" is also more overtly political than "Billy Elliot", which never makes an overt statement about the rights and wrongs of the strike or of the programme of pit closures which provoked it. "Brassed Off" is much more overtly on the side of the miners, possibly because when it was made in 1996 the Tories were still in power; by 2000 Britain had a Labour government which showed no interest in reopening the mines which the Tories had closed, and little interest in saving the few which were still left. Trying to refight the battles of fifteen years earlier probably seemed a vain endeavour, especially as growing concerns about global warming meant that fossil fuels like coal were becoming increasingly unpopular.
My main complaint about the film would be with the large amount of swearing in the script and the violent confrontations between striking miners and the police- not because I am a prude about bad language and violence but because I feel that a movie like this one, with its eleven-year-old hero, should be available to younger viewers. In Britain it was given a certificate restricting it to people aged 15 and over.
Young Jamie Bell, however, is excellent in the leading role touching story. The two other performances which stood out for me came from Julie Walters, who was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar, as his ballet teacher, and from Gary Lewis as his father. Lewis plays Jackie with his native Scottish accent rather than a Durham one, but this is not necessarily inappropriate. When times were hard in the mining industry, miners would often move from one coalfield to another in search of work. I have never been a great ballet lover- I have probably been to the ballet about three times in my life- but I must admit that some excellent films have been made about the subject, in particular Powell and Pressburger's "The Red Shoes" and Darren Aronofsky's more recent "Black Swan". I wouldn't rank "Billy Elliot" quite as highly as those two masterpieces, but it is nevertheless a highly enjoyable film with a moving human story. 7/10.
There are certain similarities between this film and "Brassed Off" from four years earlier, another film about the miners' strike and about working-class people finding fulfilment through cultural activities. There are, however, also a couple of differences. "Brassed Off" was about the members of a brass band; unlike ballet the brass band movement has always been regarded as part of the working-class culture of Northern England. "Brassed Off" is also more overtly political than "Billy Elliot", which never makes an overt statement about the rights and wrongs of the strike or of the programme of pit closures which provoked it. "Brassed Off" is much more overtly on the side of the miners, possibly because when it was made in 1996 the Tories were still in power; by 2000 Britain had a Labour government which showed no interest in reopening the mines which the Tories had closed, and little interest in saving the few which were still left. Trying to refight the battles of fifteen years earlier probably seemed a vain endeavour, especially as growing concerns about global warming meant that fossil fuels like coal were becoming increasingly unpopular.
My main complaint about the film would be with the large amount of swearing in the script and the violent confrontations between striking miners and the police- not because I am a prude about bad language and violence but because I feel that a movie like this one, with its eleven-year-old hero, should be available to younger viewers. In Britain it was given a certificate restricting it to people aged 15 and over.
Young Jamie Bell, however, is excellent in the leading role touching story. The two other performances which stood out for me came from Julie Walters, who was nominated for a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar, as his ballet teacher, and from Gary Lewis as his father. Lewis plays Jackie with his native Scottish accent rather than a Durham one, but this is not necessarily inappropriate. When times were hard in the mining industry, miners would often move from one coalfield to another in search of work. I have never been a great ballet lover- I have probably been to the ballet about three times in my life- but I must admit that some excellent films have been made about the subject, in particular Powell and Pressburger's "The Red Shoes" and Darren Aronofsky's more recent "Black Swan". I wouldn't rank "Billy Elliot" quite as highly as those two masterpieces, but it is nevertheless a highly enjoyable film with a moving human story. 7/10.