Gotta Dance

If I'd known ahead of time that Stephen Daldry was the director behind the movie Billy Elliot, I probably never would have given it a chance. This is, after all, the guy who directed such mind-numbing Oscar cliches like The Hours, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and The Reader. (He's also rumored to be in consideration for a future Star Wars film. Oh dear.) But it turns out that this being Daldry's first full length feature must make all the difference; it came before he decided to focus his career exclusively on boring movies.

You probably already know it (or have seen the movie yourself), but Billy Elliot is the story of a young English boy with a talent most won't understand. It's the mid 1980s, his mother has died, and his father is out of work due to a labor strike. Life is pretty grim for him, save for the joy he finds in an unlikely place: ballet lessons. Yet while it's both his passion and, according to his teacher, a true calling, his father is having none of it. Drama ensues, the story of finding what one is meant to do and changing minds.

Having now seen this, I do feel like I understand where the movie Sing Street pulled some of its inspiration -- both are set in the same time frame, take place in broken homes, and are centered on a young boy who has found a way to express himself. My preference is ultimately for Sing Street, but Billy Elliot is a good experience too.

At the risk of spoiling things (but hey, the movie is 17 years old), Billy Elliot takes a more interesting Act 3 turn. Billy's dream becomes the whole family's dream, a single rope of something good that everyone can hold on to in the midst of everything else going wrong. It's uplifting to watch a father and brother, both dead-set against Billy's passion at first, make the turn and become supportive. You could take this tale at face value or draw your own analogies from it (the film itself, in fact, includes a subplot about a young gay kid struggling with the closet), but either way it's a tear-in-the-eye, smile-on-the-face story.

I'm not sure the movie ever quite convinces me that Billy is really the ballet prodigy he's said to be, but young Jamie Bell is certainly a good actor in this, and I'd gladly take that over perfectly polished dance skills. (Indeed, at age 14, he won the BAFTA for Best Actor in this role.) Actually, the cast is great throughout, though it's likely the only one recognizable to the average American audience would be Julie Walters, who plays Mrs. Wilkinson, the chain-smoking, cantankerous ballet teacher with a secret heart of gold. (She too won a BAFTA for her performance.)

I have a soft spot for "I have to find my own path" movies, and Billy Elliot is another solid entry in that niche. I give it a B+.