Someone's been watching us...

Rating: Null/10 (9 March 2001)

As I watched the lights come back up in the theatre after the last roll of end credits, I couldn't help but imagine that the person who had written "Billy Elliot" had been spying on my life. But not my life, really. More like my emotions, my feelings about the experiences of my life.
Of course it's clear that I'm not the only one who's had feelings like that coming away from this great film. "Billy Elliot" is a film which inhabits truth, breathes it; and life exudes from it. Black or white, man or woman, straight, gay, or in between, we all carry our own personal moments of pain, joy, peace, and terror; we all know the truth of living in this world.

While there are terms for movies which connect with those memories, those truths, "Billy Elliot" transcends all attempts to define it or pigeonhole it, or denigrate it. You can laugh at it, at those many women and men who made it, at those who love it, but you cannot lessen the truth of it by calling it a "chick flick" or "heartwarming" or "fantasy" or any other label people might wish to inflict on it. The film does have elements of all those things, but it's value as fictional truth gives it weight beyond such simple labels.
If you go see "Billy Elliot" with even the slightest desire to be more than entertained, holding the possibility that you might see a small reflection of yourself, you will leave feeling empowered in the truth and worth of your own existence; that all too occasional feeling that you are special.
Because, of course, the truth is, as ordinary as we all are, there is only one of each of us. Just as important though, "Billy Elliot" might for one short moment in your life remind you that the world isn't always 6 billion individuals but, for precious moments, is a place where we are all one and the same.