It is precisely the time and place, however, for him to succeed. For someone to succeed.
If this plot line sounds vaguely familiar to regular moviegoers, it should. In 1998's underrated Brassed Off, striking English miners took solace in their town's amateur brass band; in 1997's far more popular The Full Monty, out-of-work Brits lifted their spirits by reinventing themselves as a troupe of male strippers. Billy Elliot falls squarely into the same triumph-over-trouble genre, but that is not to say it should be written off as an imitation or a spinoff. For one thing the film's young star -- an exuberant, whirling dervish named Jamie Bell -- is such a winning, witty screen presence that you can't help pulling for his plucky Billy. For another the steely father (Gary Lewis) and the sulky brother (Jamie Draven) who oppose him sport vivid personalities of their own. And Billy Elliot can be as howlingly funny as it is touching. If British filmmaking means to stage a comeback, it is likely to happen by way of nuanced, character-rich movies such as this.
Daldry, a stage director making his big-screen debut, and screenwriter Lee Hall don't hesitate to load the deck emotionally, but that comes with the territory. That Billy's mother has died young comes as no great surprise; neither does the gruff, chain-smoking ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters), who takes a special interest in the boy. For color the moviemakers also provide Billy with a doddering grandmother (Jean Heywood) who imagines she could have been a great dancer, and a best friend (Stuart Wells) who turns out to be gay. Meanwhile the film takes pains to point out that Billy himself is resolutely hetero. When we first see this scrawny, disjointed kid in action, he's getting his clock cleaned at the local boys' boxing club; finding himself drawn to the girls' ballet class being conducted in the same gymnasium, he worries about it. "I feel like a sissy," he admits, his hormones obviously in preadolescent torment.
That's nothing compared to Dad's outrage when he discovers Billy spinning pirouettes. "Lads do football or boxing or wrestling," he rants, "not... ballet." The father spits the word out like an obscenity, and we know right away that the birth of this artist is going to involve some labor pains. Widowed, on strike, and frustrated, Dad has enough trouble putting food on the table. He doesn't need a son he thinks is a poof. Better he turn out to be Rocky Balboa.
Inevitably familial love goes to battle with ignorance. When Mrs. Wilkinson, who has an eye for raw talent if not much talent herself, urges Billy to follow his calling and audition for the Royal Ballet School in far-off London, the film's real crisis erupts. Will the young hero, uncertain about his own abilities and almost everything else, have the guts to be true to himself? Will the father be able to set aside prejudice and honor his son's dream? You don't need a film critic to answer such questions. Suffice it to say that director Daldry has a splendid way with actors and a keen eye for the comic potential and the deeper meanings of a scene. Witness the Elliots' heart-wrenching Christmas celebration, with the impoverished clan sitting in its tiny kitchen wearing paper hats, the mortified father barely containing his shame. Watch Dad open the family jewelry box, for reasons he couldn't have imagined. Exult in Billy and Dad's weird trip to alien London.
If there's more than a hint of hokeyness in all this, so be it. Movies can (and often do) commit worse sins than strumming away on our heartstrings. The strumming becomes not just palatable but downright enjoyable if it is decorated, as it is here, with some sharp observations on class warfare, the confusions of boyhood, and the stubbornness of provincial thought. Besides, who shouldn't be reminded once in a while that there's more than one way for Rocky to win a big fight?
Balletomanes won't confuse Billy Elliot with transcendent dance films such as The Red Shoes or I Am a Dancer anytime soon, because the blue-eyed, jug-eared, sometimes splay-footed kid we meet here has trouble getting out of his own way for most of these 100 or so minutes. But it would be a mistake to undervalue Billy's enthusiasm, his need for escape, or the purity of his desire. As we all should know by now, from such small steps do great leaps spring.
