OxfordPress.com

Grade: A-

Verdict: Makes you want to dance.

Details: Starring Jamie Bell, Julie Walters and Gary Lewis. Rated R for profanity. One hour, 50 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: From the bouncy, buoyant opening credits to the freeze-frame shot that ends it, "Billy Elliot" will make you feel like dancing - even if you don't know a waltz step from the Watusi. You could think of this feature debut from stage director Stephen Daldry as a kind of "Rocky" in tights, only it's better than that.

Eleven-year-old Billy (Jamie Bell) is growing up in 1984 in a British coal-mining town teetering on chaos. Both his widowed father (Gary Lewis) and brother Tony (Jamie Draven) are on strike, and life gets tenser daily as scab workers cross the picket lines and policemen flood the village to keep the peace.

You might think the boxing lessons his father pays for would be an ideal, stress-releasing outlet for Billy. But one day at the gym, he finds himself drawn to the sight of young girls practicing their pliés under the eye of Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters), who barks out instructions without ever losing her cigarette. Sensing a natural, she has Billy wearing ballet slippers in no time, and he secretly swaps pirouettes for left hooks.

His biggest fear is being found out, of being called a sissy. Even his pal Michael (Stuart Wells), who seems to have gay leanings himself, warns Billy. In the words of Billy's father, "Lads do football or boxing or wrestling." But there's nothing fey about the boy's need to dance. It flows out of him, it infuses his mundane surroundings - whether he's improvising a pas de deux with a punching bag, or releasing pent-up frustration in an outdoor dance expressing his rage at the adults.

"Billy Elliot" gives equal weight to the boy's secret quest and to the deteriorating state of the town and his family. While the movie is clearly on Billy's side, Lee Hall's screenplay is generous to all its characters. We can see how Billy's study of dance can seem both a frivolous escape from reality, and also a potential escape hatch from his father and brother's hand-to-mouth existence.

Former director of London's Royal Court Theatre, Daldry and his director of photography Brian Tufano ("Trainspotting") make the most of their setting. The film offers startling, oddly lovely images: A sad flat cemetery dwarfed by a hulking black factory. A tracking shot that follows a girl as she runs along, the background changing from postered city walls to a row of police shields. A parade of girls in white tutus contrasts with policemen in their black uniforms. When Daldry has the famous strains of "Swan Lake" play beneath the image of a train moving through the sullen countryside, it's a lovely collision of industrial bleakness and romance.

Though its main focus is on dancing, in the end "Billy Elliot" is about seeing, as son and father finally reach an understanding of each other, and for the first time view each other as individuals. Bell, a dancer from the age of 6, not only has the right mix of unruly energy and innate skill in the dancing, he's also a compelling, intent young actor. He gets terrific support from Lewis, who makes Billy's father a complex, sympathetic character willing to make sacrifices for his family, but not sure which are the right ones to make.

Then there's Walters, fusing a seen-it-all toughness with a sadness about her own lost opportunities. "Find a place on that bloody wall and focus on that spot," she yells at Billy as he practices his pirouettes; her teaching is a mix of encouragement and tough love.

"Billy Elliot" is one of those rare movies that earns its feel-good ending without turning a blind eye to the compromises and little sorrows of everyday life. Too bad about its R rating. It's the kind of movie people of all ages could enjoy.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service