I had plans to go to the movies this weekend as I have been for the past few weekends, I am fully vaccinated and go out masked most of the time anyway. About the only times I don’t is when I am going somewhere when I know for an absolute fact that most if not all of the people present are vaccinated. I have little to worry about. But the Delta variant is very high just about everywhere, and my area when into the red on the CDC’s scale. True, my state isn’t as bad as others, but I knew that, even as much as I wanted to see Nine Days, I would be at least a little uncomfortable there, so it would be better to just stay home. I have a new HDTV now, a lot of movies on a lot of watchlists, so I think I will be fine for movies that, even if they aren’t new, will at least be new to me.
Anyway, last night I watched the coming-of-age dance film Billy Elliot.
In the middle of the British miner’s strike of 1984, young Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) has a somewhat unusual problem. He’s not very good at boxing, but he manages to spy an all-girl ballet class in another part of the gym. Intrigued, it turned out Billy has some natural talent for ballet. Small problem: his father’s (Gary Lewis) and older brother’s (Jamie Draven) ideas on manhood don’t quite accept the idea of a man doing ballet. Sure, Billy’s somewhat senile Grandma (Jean Heywood) says she could have been a professional ballet dancer once upon a time, but nobody seems to listen to her much anyway. However, even after Billy’s father forcibly pulls the lad from the class, his teacher (Julie Walters) really sees Billy’s potential and agrees to give the boy some private, free lessons so Billy can try out for the Royal Ballet School. Billy’s family is struggling enough with the strike going on, but the biggest problems may be more a matter of class and ideas on masculinity than anything else.
So, this was a nice little movie, nothing really earth-shattering, and it ended in a way that movies like this always do. Billy’s father eventually sees how talented his son is and does what he can to support the lad, even almost becoming a scab at the mines to raise money to let his boy go to London, and that support seems to filter down to Billy himself who shows a lot of tolerance and support for his best friend Michael (Stuart Wells) when Billy realizes Michael is gay even though he himself isn’t. As the movie ends and Billy’s father and brother make the trip to London to see an adult Billy dance, it’s clear there’s a lot of love for Billy even if his dad and brother seem a little weirded out by an adult Michael sitting nearby wearing make-up and with boyfriend next to him. They don’t react in a disgusted manner or anything. They just seem a little confused by the sight.
If anything, the real conflict is one of class. Billy’s working class family can’t seem to conceive of the idea that the middle class ballet teacher isn’t trying to get something out of Billy’s lessons beyond getting a gifted boy a chance to do something he loves and is actually good at. Likewise, Billy himself reacts in the way that says he is, at times, very much his father’s son. True, he’s a good lad most of the time, but he isn’t above throwing a punch when he’s upset with someone, and even he isn’t sure how much he wants people to know he’s learning ballet.
Movies like this may be familiar, but that doesn’t make them bad. The scenes of struggle, like what Billy’s father needs to do to set up a Yule fire on Christmas, are what makes Billy’s story a bit different, and as an American, it is a different cultural experience even if they do speak the same basic language (honestly, their accents were at times challenging for my tinnitus). The strike, the class struggle, all were factors in how Billy’s story worked its way out, and they felt to me as more distinctly working class British than they did American, seeing as how the miners were striking against the policies of Margaret Thatcher than some private mining company. The end result was a movie about how talent can win out in the end, and maybe we should just let kids follow their dreams and skills, even if they don’t fit our own ideas of what those dreams and skills should be. Cliched, but familiar, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If anything, there’s a lot right about that.
Grade: B+
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