Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1761 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-04-18
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Foursquare in the gritty-but-hearwarming tradition of Brassed Off and The Full Monty comes Billy Elliot, the first film of noted British theatrical director Stephen Daldry. The setting is County Durham in 1984, and things 'oop North are even grimmer than usual: the miners' strike is in full rancorous swing and 11-year-old Billy's dad and older brother, miners both, are staunch on the picket lines. Billy's got problems of his own. His dad's scraped together the fees to send him to boxing lessons, but Billy's discovered a different aptitude: a genius for ballet dancing. Since admitting to such an activity is tantamount, in this fiercely macho culture, to holding up a sign reading "I AM A RAVING POOF", Billy keeps it quiet. But his teacher, Mrs Wilkinson (Julie Walters, wearily undaunted) thinks he should audition for ballet school in London. Family ructions are inevitable.

Daldry's film sidesteps some of the politics, both sexual and otherwise, but scores with its laconic dialogue (credit to screenwriter Lee Hall) and a cracking performance from newcomer Jamie Bell as Billy. His powerhouse dance routines, more Gene Kelly than Nureyev, carry an irresistible sense of exhilaration and self-discovery. Among a flawless supporting cast Stuart Wells stands out as Billy's sweet gay friend Michael. And if the miners' strike serves largely as background colour, there's one brief episode, as visored and truncheoned cops rampage through neat little terraced houses, that captures one of the most spiteful episodes in recent British history. --Philip Kemp

Video Description
DVD Special Features:

Breaking Free Featurette
Theatrical Trailer
Cast & Film Biographies
Interactual Production Notes
English subtitles

From the Back Cover
With 13 Bafta and 3 Oscar nominations, Billy Elliot is a heartwarming tale of an 11 year old cola miner's son (Jamie Bell) in the North of England who's life is forever changed when he stumbles upon Mrs Wilkinson's (Julie Walters) ballet class during his weekly boxing lesson. Before long, he finds himself immersed in ballet, demonstrating a raw talent never seen before and reaching for a dream that changes the lives of everyone he touches.

Customer Reviews

**** EXPRESS YOURSELF ****
Billy Elliot is the story of an 11-year-old boy (Jamie Bell) brought up in a tough working class environment who attends boxing classes at the behest of his tough mining father (Gary Lewis). Unfortunately for Billy however, not only does he has to wear his grandfathers antique boxing gloves but he has no boxing talent whatsoever. Somewhat reluctantly (and secretly from his father) he is drawn into participating in the local ballet classes that take place in the same village hall. There he is taken under the wing of the teacher, Mrs Wilkinson, played by Julie Walters (Educating Rita) who soon realises that his flourishing talent may just be his ticket out of the poverty and deprivation that surround them. However, this is to the horror of his father, for not only is this dancing, it's not even the masculine dance of Gene Kelly. It is ballet, as his father would have it, only for girls and nancy boys.

Set in the north east of England during the British miners strike of 1984-5 Director Stephen Daldry perfectly captures the darkest period of British social history and the poverty suffering and devastation that it brought to so many communities in this extremely heartwarming and uplifting movie. The miners strike was the period in Britain's history when Margaret Thatcher literally starved the coal miners, who were striking to save their jobs, back to work. It literally turned neighbours against one another, brought enormous economic hardship to families and destroyed communities. And when it was all over they closed all the pits anyway and all hope was stolen from the working classes, perhaps never to be restored again.

Billy Elliot is a very good movie but I have one objection with it and all the other 'gritty' British movies and that is the way the working classes are always portrayed. On the basis of Brassed Off, The Full Monty, Little Voice etc., Americans must really pity us poor British in our squalid terraced council houses and working men's clubs, cigarette permanently in one hand, beer permanently in the other, with our conversations littered with obscenities, even when speaking to kids. The reality is somewhat different and it worries me that a stereotype may begin to develop here. I, and all of my friends come from a working class background and many of the people I knew at school had fathers working in the mines. However, none of them came from a family where obscenities, cigarettes and alcohol were the norm. Certainly there is an element of society that lives like that but from my experience they tend to be the never worked, never want to work lowest of the low, who would never fight to keep a job or bring up a family. (Excuse me whilst I get off my soap box)!

Ultimately however, this is a film with a lot of charm, a lot of humour, a lot of heart and great acting performances all round (but particularly from Gary Lewis, Julie Walters and the excellent newcomer Jamie Bell as the title character). The movie is full of fine moments including Billy and his teacher performing a powerhouse dance routine to I Love to Boogie by T Rex, or when Mrs Wilkinson's daughter Debbie idly bangs a stick along the row of policemen's perspex riot shields, whilst sauntering down the street and Billy's dance of rage when his father forbids him from dancing again.

Stephen Daldry's direction and the screenplay by Lee Hall are both excellent and it is to their credit that they deal with the question of Billy's nascent sexuality, avoiding vulgarity and judgement. Billy Elliot is not a stereotypical male ballet dancer but the question of his sexuality is left open to question and to their credit the filmmakers have avoided the obvious temptation to reassure the audience that the young boy is straight, because it is irrelevant to the triumph against the odds story. Slightly confusing however, is the use of T rex throughout the soundtrack and other obvious references to the seventies, such as the sight of a Spacehopper and the game Ker-Plunk. 1984/5 was more the time of Wham, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Duran Duran and the Spacehopper and fallen from fashion some ten years earlier (although now making a return apparently). However, any criticisms are mere details for Billy Elliot is that annual rarity, a really good British movie, that both inspires and entertains in equal volumes. Highly recommended!

It'll have you laughing and crying - must see more that once
Billy Elliot can be seen as a film on the same lines as "Four Weddings and A Funeral" or "Notting Hill" because it is a British based and allows you to be attracted to themes bringing you closer to home.

Luckily though, this film goes beyond those levels and into ones which are only reached by the best of the best. The acting is fantastic and Jamie Bell deserves all the credit he is getting for his superb performance.

The storyline has two themes, the famous boxer come ballerina one and the picket-mining aspect which help you follow the whole family in their personal and financial problems whilst raising Billy. Billy wants to be a ballerina but his Dad and brother refuse the idea as they have been brought up with boxing and coal mining. Billy is helped through in an emotional but hilarious story, by his dance teacher played brilliantly by Julie Walters.

This is a must-see film and go more then once so you can digest all sides of the story and for two hours watch a little boy become a star.

My favourite film
I saw Billy Elliot for the first time when I was quite young, and didn't understand the numerous complex issues involved in the story. When I saw it again several years later, I was moved to tears by several of the scenes, and found it one of the most sensitive, witty, blunt and beautiful films I have ever seen. It encounters problems that were very relevant at the time it is set, and deals with them completely adequately and with a touch of humour to soften the blow of some of the more heart-rending scenes- not that these are often very obvious, but will choke you up all the same. The acting is second to none, and it tugs at your heart strings at the same time as delivering some hilarious one-liners along the way. Also the best soundtrack in a very, very long time.