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Wilkinson (Julie Walters, wearily undaunted), thinks he should audition for ballet school in London. Since admitting to such an activity is tantamount, in this fiercely macho culture, to holding up a sign reading "I Am Gay," Billy keeps it quiet. His dad has scraped together the fees to send him to boxing lessons, but Billy has discovered a different aptitude: a genius for ballet dancing.
Billy elliot rotten tomatoes full#
The setting is County Durham in 1984, and things "up 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 on the picket lines. Filmmakers should sacrifice the F-word in order to make their films more available to those under 17.Foursquare in the gritty-but-heartwarming tradition of Brassed Off and The Full Monty comes Billy Elliot, the first film from noted British theatrical director Stephen Daldry. The MPAA should concede the melancholy fact that every teenager has heard this and most other nasty words thousands of times, or 2). There are two solutions to the linkage of the F-word and the R rating: 1).
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Billy elliot rotten tomatoes movie#
In the case of "Billy Elliot," the movie contains only mild violence and essentially no sex, and the R is explained entirely by the language, particularly the "F-word." The filmmakers believe that is a word much used by British coal miners, and I am sure they are correct. While kids will gladly sneak into R-rated movies they hope will be violent or scary, the R barrier only discourages them from films that could be helpful or educational. Note : Once again, we are confronted by a movie that might be ideal for teenagers near Billy Elliot's age, but has been slapped with the R rating. She doesn't notice that she is suddenly walking in front of a line of cops, called up against the striking miners and carrying plastic shields she clicks on those, too. Billy's friend Debbie is walking along a fence, clicking a stick against the boards. The movie was directed by Stephen Daldry, a well-known stage director, and photographed by Brian Tufano, who has one shot that perfectly illustrates the difference between how children and adults see the world. Jamie Bell is an engaging Billy, earnest and high-spirited, and a pretty good dancer, too. The character of the transvestite Michael in particular seems based more on wishful thinking than on plausible reality would a gay boy of his age in this neighborhood of this town in 1984 be quite so sure of himself? Julie Walters, a 1984 Academy Award nominee for " Educating Rita," is spirited and colorful as the ballet teacher, and Gary Lewis is somehow convincing as the dad even when the screenplay requires him to make big offscreen swings of position. Still, the movie is as much parable and fantasy as it is realistic. I can believe a coal miner supporting his son's dancing dreams, but anyone who believes he would become a scab to raise the money doesn't know much about union miners. Billy's dad, a supporter of the strike, not only begins to understand his son's dream, but actually becomes a strikebreaker to get money for Billy to attend an important audition. The movie is sort of awkwardly cobbled together, and there are big shifts in character without much explanation. Michael is attracted to Billy, who doesn't reciprocate, but seems unusually sophisticated about the implications for a boy his age.
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Billy's best friend Michael (Stuart Wells) is gay, however-a cross-dresser who reaches the high point of his young life by putting on one of the tutus. Soon he is shyly joining her class, the only boy in a crowd of tutus.īilly's father equates male ballet dancers with homosexuality, but Billy doesn't seem to be gay, a fact he discovers to his sudden embarrassment during a pillow fight with his friend Debbie (Nicola Blackwell). One day, at the other end of the village hall, he sees ballet lessons being taught by a chain-smoking disciplinarian ( Julie Walters), and his eyes grow large. Life at home is tense because his father ( Gary Lewis) and brother Tony ( Jamie Draven) are striking miners. The movie takes place in a British coal mining town, where Billy ( Jamie Bell) trudges off to boxing lessons for which he is ill-equipped.