| Review: Billy Elliot | |
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I was surprised how flat and perfunctory most of the scenes felt: Billy's relationship with his teacher, Billy's fight with his dad, the altogether unconvincing reversal. I had a hard time buying any of the emotions, and I wanted to laugh when dad chopped up his deceased wife's piano for firewood. The emotional stakes seem strangely low, and nowhere do we actually feel the supposed economic distress of the family. Everything just sort of happens because, well, that's what's supposed to happen.
The same is true for the strike: mostly, it's pure window-dressing and lacks all urgency or real struggle. It looks as if picketing, throwing rocks, and being chased by police in riot gear was simply something English men do, like watching soccer or drinking stout. When the strike is over and the men return to the mine, who cares?
The worst offense, though, is the way in which Billy Elliot constantly fishes for our affections. I resent having swelling theme music forced upon me at every hint of empty emotion. I found Billy's dance scenes, complete with pratfalls and some safe rock'n roll, plain embarrassing. Two or three of them are flat-out cringeworthy.
I enjoy easy and moving films as much as the next guy. But Billy Elliot is another in a series of movies that feel like a particular nasty outgrowth of globalization, the McDonaldization of the English film industry. I suppose audiences in Europe actually do like this film, but I can't shake the feeling that it was especially produced, targeted, and marketed to an American audience that wants to feel that it is enjoying an "artsy" world film.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Full Monty wasn't especially daring, but at least it was fresh and charming. Billy Elliot is so flat, shallow, and devoid of any surprise that it could easily have been produced by Disney for an audience of 10-year-olds. There is absolutely nothing foreign about this "foreign" film.
It would have been interesting to take a page or two from Ratcatcher or The 400 Blows and steer this film into darker territory every now and then. For instance, a great opportunity is wasted when Billy's gay friend comes out to him. The 11-year-old Billy could have shown signs of sexual confusion, but no such risks are taken here. I also truly long to see a movie about somebody who follows their dream but isn't any good at it at all. Here, everything is squeaky clean, nothing is ever at risk, and there isn't a single interesting moment in the whole movie.
The film's success seems to contradict me, and apparently many people are giving in to Billy's charms, whatever they may be. But nobody will have their imaginations stretched or their ideas shaken by this dull and criminally harmless movie. Shock! It's ok for boys to dance ballet! Who would have thought it! Thanks to Billy Elliot, audiences everywhere can now congratulate themselves on being more enlightened than Billy's coal-mining father. Well, whoop-de-doo.
Director Stephen
Daldry
Writer Lee Hall
Stars Julie Walters, Gary Lewis, Jamie Bell, Jamie Draven, Jean Heywood,
Stuart Wells, Matthew Thomas
Running time 111 minutes
UK 1999
