cute but sappy story of a working-class boy who prefers ballet to boxing.

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2000)

Weird isn't it? Miners from the North of England are all the rage in British films, not that all the mines have closed down. Billy Elliot takes us to the same milieu made popular in Brassed Off and The Full Monty; and the problematics of masculinity in a world where men are not working is again addressed. This time we have an 11-year-old who discovers he prefers dancing to boxing, much to the dismay of his father and brother.

The film is cute and boasts a good performance by its star who has the young-old look of a kid who has known poverty. It also has some beautiful industrial landscape shots. Alas, however, like so many recent British films, it suffers from a sloppy, sappy script and a musical score which tugs relentlessly on the heart strings. Given the premise, any of us could have written the script and we might have been able to resist some of the excesses of sentiment.