Billy Elliot (UK) (BBC/Working Title/others) (2000) ****Year: 2000iMDB
Director: Stephen Daltry Cast: Jamie Bell, Julie Walters,Gary Lewis,Jamie Draven
I am breaking my rule of reviewing movies that were released prior to 2000, but Billy Elliot deserves and exception. It is one of the most life-affirming movies ever made.
Billy Elliot is set in the mid-1980s, against the backgrop of the miner's strikes that changed British history. The eponymous Billy Elliot is a young boy who discovers one day that he loves dance. For a young boy whose father and brother are both miners, this isn't quite regarded as being normal. His father tries quite strenuously to prevent his son from pursuing his dream, until...
The story centers around Billy, his dance teacher (played by Julie Walters) who discovers his talent, and his father, but also addresses questions such as whether the fact that a boy wants to be a dancer mean he's gay in a perfectly non-judgemental way. It features some outstandingly beautiful photography of what is really a grim mining town. It's also one of the few films that is really worthwhile viewing for kids that doesn't 'talk down' to them. The only minor problem may be that the northern English accents are a bit hard to understand at first for Americans (or so I've been told!)
Posted by bc on December 26, 2005 09:02 PM