The dancing makes up for a lot

Rating: 5/10 (11 April 2001)

I can't believe so many people fall for the cheap, sentimental effects that are used in this film. Imagine how the script was written. "OK, how are we going to raise some sympathy for this kid." "why, do we need to raise sympathy?" "For chrissake, he's a BALLET DANCER". "OK, what will we do, usual stuff?" "Yeah, dead mother, poor family" "Mines closing down?" "Hasn't that been done too often?" "Who cares?" "You're right. And let's put a demented grandma in there." "Good, good. Make sure the boy has to take care for her constantly." "We can't, he has to dance constantly." "The audience won't notice." "By the way, has anyone seen the ambition-blocked-by-parents-template anywhere?" "Yeah, I threw it out, it was worn-out too much. It must be somewhere here in the trash... here it is." "Thanks."
However, the script being written with a sledgehammer, the boy's dancing is brilliant, the girl is cute and the acting is quite nice.
The funny thing is that I saw the Japanese film Shall we dansu? (dansu dance in Japanese) (http://us.imdb.com/Details?0117615) the day after on video. It's actually almost the same story, only the straightforward, poor, miners' boy is a shy, reasonable successful, Japanese businessman and it's not about ballet, but about ballroom dancing. I don't give a damn about ballroom, nor about shy Japanese businessmen, and I do like modern ballet, and England, however, the story of Shall we dansu? wins in originality, subtlety, humor and plain enjoyment. Although this gem of a film is older, it seemed to me the writers had seen "Billy Elliot" and declared: We can do this thing as well - but good. They actually knew all about the dance and gave their knowledge brilliant uses in the plot. You can't say that of Billy Elliot.