Billy's excellent adventure.

Rating: 10/10 (21 November 2000)

From the opening sequence where the soundtrack proclaims `I was dancing when I was twelve' to the last moment of this incredible film you will probably fall in love with Billy Elliott the character and Jamie Bell  the talented young actor that portrays him.
This film is what all film should be and all too often is not: story driven.
There are no big flashy special effects, no car chases, no guns, and no overt sexuality. There is some violence  but it is not gratuitous and is necessary to the plot and to the development of the characters into real people.
Set in the coal mining district in the north of England, Billy's passion for dance is as unlikely as the existence of a snowball in hell: his family solves problems with their fists.
Julie Walters, whom I did not recognize even though I have seen `Educating Rita' at least a dozen times, is fantastic as Billy's chain-smoking dance teacher that sees something in Billy that he does not see in himself. As in most of her performances, she very nearly steals the show.
But the show belongs to Jamie Bell. Though he is actually 4 years older than the character he plays, he is the quintessential man/boy, forced to be an adult because times and situations are difficult. Though this is his first film he carries the whole movie and appears in nearly every scene  and he carries it magnificently.
There is much to this film It is a simple story of a boy that wants to be a ballet dancer  but there are so many subtexts and complexities that it becomes so much more than the simple story it, at first, appears to be.
Again, British cinema tackles a subject that is completely taboo to American film: the subject of a young person's sexuality (see `Beautiful Thing'). It acknowledges that young people do have sexual feelings and they are often confusing and complex and not to be swept under the carpet or ignored.
This is only screenwriter Lee Halls' second film  if he continues in this vein expect greatness.
So too for Jamie Bell -- he has the makings of a true star, with a quality that leaps off the screen and into your heart.
This is one of the finest films ever made and upholds the magnificent tradition that is British cinema.