too close to home for me

Rating: 4/10 (10 July 2003)

I wish this film had given me the same pleasure it has clearly given so many others, but to tell you the truth, it made me cringe! I come from a Billy Elliot-type area - a lot of it was filmed just up the road, in Easington - and all I could see were the tired North-East England cliches of "hard" men, the miners' strike, salt of the earth, blah blah blah. I wasn't convinced at all when Billy's dad, having spent half the film calling him a poof, suddenly changed his tune. And Julie Walters' accent was atrocious! Wasn't she nominated for an Oscar for this performance? Crazy!