Billy Elliot

Stephen Daldry's ambitious film Billy Elliot soars high with the critics and the movie-going public. Set in a mining town embroiled with labor dispute, Billy Elliot is a movie about doing what you really want to do and being what you really want to be despite the odds of being rejected and ostracized. Billy's father who works in a mining camp (Gary Lewis) wants his son to follow after his lead: be a boxer or football player. He disapproves of his elder son's activism and the last thing he wants to see is his younger son dancing, and dancing ballet!

But Billy (Jamie Bell) has the heart and talent to become a ballet sensation. With the aid of a lovelorn mid-life-ing but tough and determined ballet instructor (Julie Walters) Billy is out to prove the world and his dad that there is nothing wrong with following one's dream even if that dream takes you to a place where only a few appreciates and understands you. So Billy hangs his boxing gloves and exchanges them for a pair of ballet shoes and starts what will later be a lifelong love-affair with dancing.

Of interest in the movie is the background story of Billy's dead mother and the increasing isolation between Billy and his Dad, between the two brothers and between his Dad and his brother. Billy Elliot manages to be at once a heartfelt story without pandering on the melodrama, it is funny and at times poignant but in the end it is really a story of acceptance, forgiveness and the triumph of the human spirit to soar high above personal dilemmas.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Billy's father finally has recognized that his son is as normal as any other boy and that he is his son no matter what he chooses to be and to do. Father and son, playfully tease each other, laughing out loud until they fell on the grass and embrace one another.

Billy Elliot has recently been turned into a West End musical with composition by no less than Sir Elton John who also produced the musical.

Wonderful, entertaining and heart-warming!





Director: Stephen Daldry
Cast: Jamie Bell. Gary Lewis, Julie Walters
Released: 2000
Country: Britain