Sweet and Sour

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2001)

I avoided this movie for months because of its high potential for hokey triumph-of-the-human-spirit emotional uplift. And yes, it does get rather squishy in the last half-hour, and it tests credibility in spots. It's hard to believe, for instance, that Billy, stealing a few furtive hours of dance practice under his father's steely watch, would master not only ballet but also tap, jazz, and traditional Irish dance.
But you expect such liberties from this genre. The surprise is how bleak most of the movie is: It's set in a horrible corner of Thatcher's England, where workers are one step above starving and the weather is always awful and the architecture is ugly and moldering. No wonder everybody in the movie is cross with everybody else. There's much more ill will and bickering than there are Kodak moments. The result is a dish of an unexpected variety of flavors, and a satisfyingly cranky indictment of Thatcherism.

Bell and Walters deserve their good reviews, but the real breakout performance is Gary Lewis'. He conveys more with his eyes than most actors do with their entire bodies.