Stephen Daldry's switch to the screen brings us an invigorating and surprising tale about a ballet-dancing boy, writes Peter Bradshaw
From somewhere on a spectrum between Kes and How Green Was My Valley, the British stage director Stephen Daldry brings us Billy Elliot, his screen debut. This is a bold, attractive and emotionally generous film about a young boy growing up in the north-east during the miners' strike of 1984-85, who discovers in himself a talent for dance. And - to the horror of his striking miner father, played by the perennially excellent Gary Lewis - this is not even the virile and masculine dance of Gene Kelly. It is ballet: mincing, prancing, flouncing tutu-wearing ballet, and young Billy (Jamie Bell) has to work on his pliés along with all the girlies in a church hall where Dad sends him every week with his 50p sub in his hot...
From somewhere on a spectrum between Kes and How Green Was My Valley, the British stage director Stephen Daldry brings us Billy Elliot, his screen debut. This is a bold, attractive and emotionally generous film about a young boy growing up in the north-east during the miners' strike of 1984-85, who discovers in himself a talent for dance. And - to the horror of his striking miner father, played by the perennially excellent Gary Lewis - this is not even the virile and masculine dance of Gene Kelly. It is ballet: mincing, prancing, flouncing tutu-wearing ballet, and young Billy (Jamie Bell) has to work on his pliés along with all the girlies in a church hall where Dad sends him every week with his 50p sub in his hot...
- 9/29/2000
- by Guardian Staff
- The Guardian - Film News
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