Bell can also do all the dance routines with the muscular strength and grace of a miniature Gene Kelly. Other strong faces on the screen include Gary Lewis as the kid's father, a tough and narrow-minded individual who would rather have his kid learn to box than indulge in something that he perceives as girlish as dance, especially because he and his fellow miners are preoccupied with a violent strike. Yet Lewis, working with Hall's multi-layered script, suggests that the father's transformation is not only possible but would be electrifying, if only he could truly understand his son. Other key actors include Jamie Draven as the hotheaded brother, Jean Heywood as the potty grandmother and Stuart Wells as Billy's best friend, a young lad who struggles with his feminine soul. Daldry and his cinematographer, Brian Tufano, collaborated on a colour scheme that emphasizes both the dinginess of the coal-mining town and the dourness of the people who populate it.
Colour bursts heighten emotional spikes.
If Billy Elliot suffers at all as a movie experience, it is that first timer Daldry's inexperience shows in the number of cliches he employs. It is also just too obvious when he wants to manipulate us into a specific emotional response. A little more subtlety and the movie might have emerged as a minor classic. Yet it still entertains and uplifts. Audiences are pleased.