Billy Elliot Review

DALDRY, Stephen. Billy Elliot. (2000). United Kingdom: BBC films, 112min.

Stephen Daldry is an English theatre and film director and producer. This renowned director has produced films like Billy Elliot (2000), The Hours (2002), The Reader (2008) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011), and with all of these creations he has become a successful award-winning filmmaker.

I have chosen Billy Elliot for the review because I consider that a dramatic film like this is very interesting to analyze. Actually, it is not a dramatic film, but also a moving and inspiring film.                                                                                

                                   

 Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) is an eleven-year-old boy who lives in England with his working class family: his widowed father (Gary Lewis), brother (Jamie Draven) and grand-mother. The film is set in County Durham, in the period of the British miners' strike of 1984-1985. His father and brother fight against the government for a better quality of life, while Billy goes to school and practices boxing. But Billy is not interested in boxing, so one day he discovers ballet and he decides to go secretly to ballet classes. When Billy’s father learns that he has changed the boxing gloves for ballet shoes, he strongly disagreed and bans him from taking classes because it was considered a “matter of women”.

Many girls, one boy

 During the film, Billy has to face problems such as the absence of his mother, his difficult financial situation because of the strike and the opposition from his family to his dream of being a professional ballet dancer.  However, he forgets all the problems when he is dancing, that’s why he does what he can to go to an audition in the Royal Ballet School with the help of his dance teacher Mrs Wilkinson (Julie Walters), who believes in him from the beginning. Finally, he gets the support from his family and he is admitted into the school. 

Interview at the Royal Ballet School

Music is an essential aspect of the film, which plays a fundamental role to move the audience and to play with his emotions. Swearwords are also very present, especially in Billy’s father and brother who are aggressive with him. Fortunately, these characters gradually change during the film, especially his father, who decides to finish the strike in order to get money to support Billy’s dream. The child-parent relationship changes drastically from the beginning to the end, when the father realize his mistake and shows his affection to Billy. 

                                                                                                      

The father shows his affection

Thanks to the actors’wonderful performance, the story seems very real and becomes emotive especially in the end, when Billy is an adult and goes on stage dancing Swan Lake    while his family and his childhood friend see him after many years.

Final part, one of the most emotional moments

Anyway, the film Billy Elliot shows us that willpower and hard work are the basic ingredients to achieve our goals. It is a film which will not disappoint anyone.