What a film!

Rating: 10/10 (13 October 2000)

This film is about Liberation in the most fundamental sense. The story of one proletarian boy's struggle to just begin to develop amazing natural gifts is brilliantly told. The viewer is shown the objective and subjective (verging on production numbers) realities of a conflicted and dominated child with seamless grace. Amazingly, the film deals with BIG issues very effectively by using the various vignettes in Billy's life. We are allowed to see things through the less cluttered child's eyes. Jamie Bell is himself a talented boy and simply IS the title role. Julie Walters, whom I will always see as the uneducated Rita, was a natural for her role. Gary Lewis, as the collier dad, was able to keep his potentially dastardly character from being a bad guy. Jamie Draven, as Billy's much older brother, captured the conflicts in his relationships extremely well. For me, Jean Heywood's farewell to Billy was a crystal revelation of what this Elliot family was all about. I cried, as I always do when a film captures the emotional fullness of a subject. The film is about class. The film is about talent. The film is about the unscarred beauty of youth. The film is about the victory of honesty and love. So, go see it and bring a handkerchief.