2000 · drama · coming-of-age · dance
Billy Elliot
Directed by Stephen Daldry1h 51m2000
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Our read: Billy Elliot (2000) reads as a warm, kinetic, grounded drama · coming-of-age · dance entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, tender in temperature, redemptive in outlook.
Warm, kinetic, measured drama / coming-of-age, grounded in texture. Redemptive, intimate, tender.
- warm
- brisk
- redemptive
- tender
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How Billy Elliot feels to watch.
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What watching it is actually like.
“You want a miner-strike backdrop powering an irresistible dance-underdog triumph.”
Skip it tonight — British class struggle and homophobic tension feel too heavy tonight.
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