Billy Elliot (Spec) [VHS]
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VHS Movie Reviews of Billy Elliot (Spec) [VHS]
Movie Review: Inspirational Delight
Summary: 5 Stars
Billy Elliot is special. It's a film that manages to delight and inspire without treacly cliche and obvious sentimental drivel. Creativity, individuality, art and personal drive must battle it out against tradition, family expectations, homophobia and economics. A triumph.Movie Review: GREAT MOVIE
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Its a little hard to understand what's being said because of the accents but you really "feel" the movie. The boy HAD TO dance! AND DID!Movie Review: Cry With Joy
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this again for the second time. I had enjoyed it the first time, but this time I loved it. Actually, it affected me powerfully. This is rather hard to account for. The boy is fantastic, rightfully praised for a superb performance. Actually, as far as that goes, the entire cast is great. There are numerous small but crucial roles. The entire family, of course, is crucial, but each actor makes the most of some very brief but moving scenes. Grandma's goodbye is powerful, for example, as is the brother's hard hitting performance as the committed striker. The father is magnificent, really perfect. The teacher gives a rather restrained performance. She is very good, though, especially with the cigarette ever dangling, which she makes a critical prop in the development of her character. (It is nice to see a real smoker again.) Her daughter, too, is rather good, although she disappears more or less, and is replaced by the gay neighborhood boy who comes many years later to see Billy dance in "Swan Lake". The teacher and Billy make a valiant effort to disassociate dance from gayness, but the last scene of the film, with the gays spotlighted in the audience, seems to suggest that the father and his friends were right after all. Was this intended as the film's message?Movie Review: Superb!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is interesting, has wonderful acting, and has places that are funny, as well as touching. It's the story of a boy who decides to follow his own dream, and not the dream of his father. The characters evolve through the movie in very endearing ways.
The language is not good. They swear a lot, but it is almost understandable in the context of the film due to the place in which they live, and the hardships they are facing.
I highly recommend this movie. It's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.
Movie Review: Joyful is the best description
Summary: 5 Stars
As a hint as to the high quality of this excellent film, notice that this film has a higher proportion of '5' scores among a large number of raters than the vast majority of films. It is a very well crafted piece of art.
The film is about the human spirit and the motivations to excel and to experience life fully. Billy is a young boy who becomes entranced with dance, an art form that allows him to express his emotions and experience a deeper connection with himself. He is reared in a working class neighborhood with a rough father and older brother, both of whom are miners on strike. Billy's mother has died and this boy interested in dance must survive in a highly tense highly aggressive home and neighborhood. Jamie Bell plays the role to perfection and deserves incredible credit for being able to carry off this lead role with such fine acting skills and ability to become the character Billy Elliot before our eyes.
The film is also about his dance teacher and mentor, played perfectly by the wonderful actress Julie Walters. She is the perfect mentor, pressing the student when he needs to be pressed but recognizing that for every step she takes, he must also make a step. The best mentors know that they can't do it for the mentee. Walters is an incredible actress, being able to be vulnerable and controlled at the same time. She recognizes that the role she has taken on in regard to Billy's budding talent is that of protector and teacher and that at some point he will move beyond her if her work is done. Walters embodies and channels this aspect of the mentor perfectly.
Gary Lewis is superb as Jackie Elliot, Billy's father. He plays a middle aged coal miner, still in grief over the loss of his wife, trying to make ends meet in a home with two sons. At first Jackie is furious that his son wants to become a dancer, but gradually the father sees the hopelessness that he and his older son experience as miners on strike, and supports his son in following his passion and breaking into a new world of opportunities and experiences.
Excellent in every way, this tale is about the growth of the human spirit but thoughtfully explores the roles of those who facilitate that growth.