Dancing to escape

Rating: Null/10 (13 November 2000)

It is nice to think that a miner's son can become a top ballet dancer, but the fact that it happens so seldom suggests it is not an easy transformation. `Billy Elliot' tells the story of a Durham miner's 11 year old son, who becomes enamoured of the dance while receiving boxing lessons. The local girls' core de ballet is training at the other end of the same gym and Billy decides the 50p for the boxing might be better spent on the ballet. The veteran teacher (Julie Walters) sees the boy is serious and puts much time into his lessons, even waiving the 50p fee when a horrified Dad finds out and cuts the money off. Dad is on strike  it is 1984, the time of the great confrontation between Mrs Thatcher and the miners.

The story plays out against several themes skillfully interwoven into a compelling tale of pushing against the odds. A few things go Billy's way. Dad sees Billy tap dancing, realizes the kid really has talent, and switches from hostility to support. After all, aren't those Riverdance guys on the telly? So does Billy's older brother, already down the mine (and on strike). The teacher gets Billy an audition with the Royal Ballet School. The locals chip in to help finance the trip. But Billy is ferociously determined as well as talented and in the end of course he succeeds, shattering a few myths in the process. For one thing he discovers he is heterosexual, much to the dismay of a gay classmate (they remain friends). Coalminers can appreciate ballet too (Dad becomes a firm fan). And Mrs Thatcher did not necessarily beat the coal miners. It was just that they didn't win.
Films like this (`The Full Monty, `Brassed Off `, `Educating Rita') celebrating the perils and potentialities of being working class, can be rather didactic (the films of Ken Loach come to mind), but this one is funny and uplifting. The kid playing Billy is stunningly good and well supported by Julie Walters, more restrained than usual, as the teacher, and the two playing Billy's father and brother. In fact all of the acting is great, including Patrick Malahide in a cameo as a delightfully snooty ballet auditioner. A group of 12 year old boys in the audience thought the film was great, judging by their comments during the film, and there were plenty of other smiling faces at the end.
CAUTION: POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD
Film makers are right to be concerned with the plight of the workers and to be a bit angry, but a good story like this one transcends the political issues and uplifts us all. At the end when the mature, accomplished and confident dancer leaps into the air as the prince in Swan Lake, we see no sign of the struggle, but only the Art, the lesson being that Art belongs to us all.