The classiest tear-jerker ever

Rating: 9/10 (21 October 2000)

Billy Elliot is the archetypal tear-jerker: there can be few dry eyes in the house by half-way through. The story is classic Eagle comic stuff, the Ending predictabe. But it's all saved from being pure marshmallow by superb direction and acting - never a false note: by deliberate under-playing of the more schmalzy moments: by beautiful camera-work: and above all by the continual linkage to a particularly painful socio-economic episode in recent English history (Mrs Thatcher's brutal crushing of the miners' strike). So - almost full marks: but one mark has to be deducted for the final ("Ten Years Later") sequence, terribly misjudged, superfluous, and containing a wretched stereotype out of kilter with all that's gone before. Still, don't forget to take the Kleenex...