Billy Elliot (2000)
Directed by Stephen Daldry

Film Review

One of the most popular British films of 2000, Billy Elliot marked three auspicious screen debuts, that of director Stephen Daldry, screenwriter Lee Hall and child actor Jamie Bell.  The combined efforts of these three resulted in a film that not only proved to be a worldwide hit but also inspired a phenomenally successful stage musical of the same title.  Against a truly grim backdrop of Thatcher's Britain (focussing on the bitter war of attrition between the government and the miners in the mid-1980s), Billy Elliot offers a profoundly moving and insightful study in personal ambition and gender identity, written, directed and performed with sensitivity and panache by an extremely talented team.   'Be true to yourself and all will be well' is the moral that this delightfully unpretentious film drives home with vigour and tenderness.

Whilst the film lacks the raw visceral edge of earlier British social realist dramas (such as those made by Ken Loach in previous decades, notably Kes), its account of a pre-teen boy battling against male stereotypes and domestic strife to fulfil his innate talent as a dancer is so authentically presented that it is hard not to be swept away on a tidal wave of emotion as you watch the film.  Billy Elliot may not be perfect (one or two key scenes are weakened by a slight excess of mawkish sentiment), but it is intensely involving throughout and is assuredly one of the most life-affirming and inspiring films to come out of Britain in at least a decade.

Thirteen year-old Jamie Bell was chosen from around 2000 candidates for the lead role of 11-year-old Billy Elliot.  Bell's own story closely mirrors that of the character he plays; like Billy, he hails from a typical family in the north of England (in a region still bearing the scars of the Thatcher government's ruthless socio-economic policies of the 1980s) and took an interest in ballet at an early age.  Ten years on, Bell is one of Britain's most promising young screen talents, winning widespread acclaim for his leading role in David Mackenzie's Hallam Foe (2007) and lending his voice to Hergé's famous quiffed sleuth in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011).  Bell won the BAFTA award for Best Actor in 2001 for his captivating portrayal of Billy Elliot, along with a brace of other awards.  The film's two other stand-out performances are supplied by Gary Lewis and Julie Walters, who both bring depth and poignancy to their harrowingly truthful portrayals of Billy's dad and dance teacher respectively.  A virtual unknown at the time, Lewis has enjoyed far greater prominence since he made this film, and Walters' own career has enjoyed a substantial boost as result of her most impressive screen performance since Educating Rita (1983).

Widely acclaimed by the critics, Billy Elliot was  showered with awards on its first release.  It was nominated for three Oscars - in the categories of Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Walters) and Best Screenplay - but failed to win any of the awards.  It fared much better at the 2001 BAFTAs, winning trophies for two of its leading actors (Bell and Walters) and the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film.  The film was also nominated for a César and scooped several other prizes, including four wins at the British Independent Film Awards.  Billy Elliot was one of the most financially successful British films of the decade, earning just over a hundred million dollars at the box office worldwide, on a budget of just over five million dollars - an encouraging sign that British cinema is still very much a force to be reckoned with.

Film Synopsis

In the mid-1980s, coal mining is no longer a profitable industry in the UK and the Conservative government is at war with the miners' union over pit closures.  Jackie Elliot and his oldest son Tony join the ranks of the striking miners in a northern English town but are pessimistic about their future.  In their part of the world, mining is the lifeblood of the community.  Jackie, a widower, is determined to make a man of his 11-year-old son Billy, and somehow he finds the money to pay for him to attend boxing lessons.  Billy has no aptitude for boxing and, one day, he is distracted by a girls' ballet lesson which is being held on the other side of the public gym.  Before he knows what he is doing, Billy has joined the dance class, encouraged by the dancing instructor Mrs Wilkinson.  When Jackie finds out about this, he is incensed and forbids his son from taking any more ballet lessons.  Unable to give up his passion for dancing, Billy takes Mrs Wilkinson up on her offer of private lessons and the teacher soon becomes convinced that her star pupil has what it takes to make a name for himself as a professional dancer.  She persuades Billy to attend an audition for a place at the Royal Ballet in London, but on the day of the audition a fierce skirmish breaks out between the striking miners and the riot police...