Cliched plot saved by some fine acting

Rating: 7/10 (6 June 2001)

It's not surprising so many foreigners think Britain is a class-ridden society. A few years ago the typical British film showed Hugh Grant and various other apparently unemployed filthy rich living the high life, now the fashion is for grimy Northern pictures showing decent working folk being ground down by the forces of conservatism. Well I am British, and I don't recognise either of these stereotypes as being particularly typical of the Britain I know.
Of course the story of the miners' strike is an important one, and Billy Elliot does make a good attempt at telling it. But Billy Elliot is primarily supposed to be about a young boy who wants to dance, so what has that got to do with the miners' strike?
What I think it's got to do with it is that the script needs a father who is basically decent, but is anti-ballet-dancing. Now in fact I'll bet that if you walk into a pub anywhere from the West End to the Gorbals, and ask what the men there think of boys doing ballet, you will get some in favour, some against, and some don't knows. But instead the film patronises the mineworkers by assuming that northern mineworker == conservative (with a small c) =thinks ballet is for "poofs". This is a cliche in the worst sense, because it's a substitute for thinking; the film robs us of the chance to see what really makes Billy Elliot's father anti-ballet, which is never explained.
It's also manipulative. If Billy Elliot was the son of a millionaire and went to Eton, his parents might be just as anti-ballet, and his public-school comrades even more scornful. But the film puts him in a stereotyped Northern family, because the scriptwriters knew that by doing that they'd tug our heartstrings more.
The film is worth seeing because of the acting of Billy Elliot and his dancing teacher, who have a really special and interesting relationship. But I don't think it deserves to be in the IMDB top 250.