Billy Elliot (2000)

An 11 years old boy Billy Elliot is sent to a boxing gym by his father, but he likes not boxing but dance. One day, he takes part in a ballet class which is given in the gym. He wants to become a ballet dancer, but his father opposes.I felt Billy's passion and his family's, especially father's affection for Billy. Parents love their children more than anything else with one thing or another.This film skillfully shows sense of hopelessness of the country town and the emotional conflict which the adolescent boy has.Music is rhythmical and pleasant.Scenes where Billy dances are very good because I was able to fell his emotion from his dancing.Also this film made me think about sexual discrimination again. I think that we mustn't take it for granted that boys should behave like boys or girls should behave like girls.I realized the wonderfulness of having a dream and supporting a person who pursues his or her dream through this film.

This is one of the only feature films I've seen that is about kids but not geared for kids (the only other that comes to mind is Stand By Me). This sort of combination is found a lot in independent shorts, and it just goes to show how kids are forced into an unkind world well before most of their parents would wish them to. It's unfortunate, because this portrays a child's journey of following his dreams pretty realistically in my opinion, whereas a movie with a lower MPAA rating would give a more romantic take on it and be "kid friendly" but also potentially misleading.What the movie does a very nice job of that I am only realizing now is how it shows the way that ballet affects Billy's life. Ballet changes *what* Billy is, not *who* he is-- his life views and his circumstances, yes, but not who he is as at his core. Ballet, his previously undiscovered passion, gives him something to confirm his identity with, but does not bring about any great changes within him on a emotional or moral level. Instead, it brings about change in those around him and gives them a new perspective and hope, namely his dad. The relationship between Billy and his dad was a little shakier. There's a common belief among screenwriters that third act problems originate in the first act, and I think that holds true here. Billy and his dad's relationship seems like it begins right when the movie does, which may be true given the recent death of Billy's mother. The only things that were used to establish their dynamic were social norms, which is not intrinsically bad, but immediate family members don't relate to each other based solely on social norms no matter how non-existent their relationship is. I don't want to totally bash the father-son portrayal here, because it actually avoids most of the common and annoying tropes that come with such movies. But there was definitely a foundation missing.It was surprisingly entertaining to see Billy discovering his love of dancing. Jamie Bell owns his performance in this respect, conveying an unashamed love of dance without coming off as a "poof". As a young man who has had many passion hobbies (one of which is analyzing movies), I could see a lot of parallels between my own experiences and those of Billy becoming a dancer. It begins with some uncertainty as to whether he likes it and whether he's any good at it, then a fear of whether he wants to identify with his new passion, then embracing ballet internally while hiding it from those close to him. Granted, my own hobbies have not been met with such resistance as Billy's but there's always a bit of a fear that they will.I would recommend anyone over 13 seeing this. Yes, there's a lot of language, but trust me, it's nothing a 13 year old hasn't heard. The same goes for the homosexual motifs. There are things about it that I think could have been better, but it was pretty good overall with some great emotional themes and an innocent undertone amidst hopeless circumstances. Overall Rating: 8/10.

There were many positives of this movie, the biggest being Jamie Bell's performance. What a wonderful representation of a boy who isn't understood by his loved ones but supersedes this and goes on to success. Wonderful acting by all the main parts, especially Jamie who accomplished this very young.My biggest blight with this film is that I wish the side story with Billy and Michael was much greater. There was little intimacy between the two of them and I felt like at the end of the film it was still ambiguous as to what sexual orientation Billy held. Any bloke can get a quick kiss on the cheek but I felt these two never shared anything special enough in the film to warrant a romantic relationship between the two.

In my personal experience, most films that have come with a lot of hype and where critics have waxed lyrically of them I have found somewhat disappointing. Unfortunately, for me, Billy Elliott falls into that category.Not that it is a bad film. one of the problems I have is as with so many British and American films of today, it lacks depth in as much as instead of discussing it's subject, it presents it in an exploratory manner where we see its facade but not entirely what is behind it.Stephen Daldry's film tells the story, with a script by Lee Hall, of a young boy (Jamie Bell) who during a boxing practicing session, witnesses a group of girls being instructed in ballet by dancing tutor Mrs Wilkinson (Julie Walters) which inspires him to take an interest in the discipline.Wilkinson hands him a pair of ballet shoes ( which just happened to be the right size) and invites him to join in. Having developed such a keen interest, and not wanting to upset his apparently bigotry father ( Gary Lewis) Billy decides to cautiously take up the offer.After successfully concealing for some time his newly found ambition from his family, his father finally discovers him in one of Wilkinson's lessons and interrupts the class to display his displeasure,much to the annoyance of Wilkinson.His fathers use of bigotry is for me, A major let down in the film because While it is perfectly acceptable to have an opinion on a given situation or person, the belief of a bigot is usually unreasonable, unfair, biased and without research or foundation. It is because of that criteria we are left with a somewhat shallow film in which instead of going deep into the subject and discussing it thoroughly and therefore making it rich in dialogue, (and such film making today is possible, even in Hollywood. Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight are prime examples) we are left with a vehicle where the father's narrow-mindedness forms a big part of the families dysfunction.Hall's decision to portray the dad as a (striking) miner was Unnecessary as was the grandmothers dementia. The character's pre occupation with the sub plots(and even they did not have much depth) distracted from the main subject in hand.His father finally comes round to the idea of Billy becoming a ballet dancer. It is another part of the films weakness that it does this without any qualified link between the father being anti and pro.Apart from Billy's impromptu thirst for ballet, there was not that much inspiration in the story to warrant him auditioning for and being accepted in its school.Several years later Billy is a young adult (Played by Adam Cooper)(It's amazing that Billy and mike aged while the father hadn't) fully fledged as a ballet dancer and performing in Swan Lake.Bell, Lewis, and Walters played their respective parts convincingly, and did their best with what little they were given, as did all the other actors, but the film was sadly let down by lazy script writing and lack of depth in the characters. This is by no means the fault of the actors but that of the creative team who came up with a good idea and then watered it down with a total lack of character study.