Cinderella in Struggletown

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2002)

A boy from the wrongest possible side of the tracks gets his chance at stardom of an unexpected kind in this feelgood British film. Set against the backdrop of the miners' strikes during the darkest years of Thatcherism makes for some interesting contrasts as we see Billy and his fellow children seemingly oblivious to the menacing circumstances that they live in. Some fun moments arise from this - the scene where Billy walks along the street chatting with Debbie, oblivious to a rank of riot police on one side, is a delight.
Jamie Bell is the child star who does a good job of making Billy believeable. One bit didn't work for me - the scene in the dressing room after Billy's audition, I'll say no more, except that this for me was a device to artificially pile on tension in the film at the risk of credibility - this is the one time in the whole film where Billy behaves completely out of character. I also wonder what happened to Billy's oversized ears by film's end - it's a bit hard to reconcile Bell with the adult that plays the grown-up Billy. Oh, well.
For mine, the best actor in this film is Stuart Wells who gives a riveting performance as Billy's best friend Michael. The rest of the cast are generally very good also - flawed, real people, no Hollywood mannequins here. Perhaps a bit too real - the Northern accents are so impenetrable at times that this film could do with subtitles. A bit too much T-Rex in the soundtrack too, particularly since one T-Rex song is usually too many. But minor quibbles aside this is an enjoyable film.