Rating: 
Summary: Fair, but not superb...
Review: I really am not that impressed with a film that leaves the viewer NO room to form an opinion contrary to what you're "Supposed to" feel. The film's so formulatic that it's really sad. There are a few early scenes that show Billy's discovery of ballet that really are something special, but even these are cross cut with shots showing the police quelling a worker's rebellion. The biggest problem with the film is that Billy is meant to stand for more than he is. He's filling in as hope for an entire community here. His dad & brother are resigned to being coal workers. His teacher has a failed marriage & teaches for 50 pence a lesson. His gay friend feels stifled by his homosexuality and sees Billy as the only one who understands him. His grandmother had hopes of being a pro dancer, but never got the training. Taken one by one these subplots are fine, but the accumulation of them all makes the film feel so forced that it really hurts the overall impact of Billy's dancing glories. The film achieves its successes in the small moments of personal discovery; the rest seems unnecessary.
The scenes simply work much better alone than in the framework of the picture where they all combine to form mush despite the fact that there is little mush contained in them individually. There's a good supporting performance by Julie Waters. The rest of the cast is fine if unexceptional. It's hardly an awful film, and I realize there is talent present, butI just with it wasn't all so damn manipulative.
Rating: 
Summary: More than a movie about dancing
Review: Billy Elliot is growing up in a mostly all-male home, his elderly grandmother lives there, but his mother passed away when he was younger. This testosterone dominated house only understands mining, union workers, and boxing. So, Billy fears telling his Dad and older brother of his secrect passion... dancing. The small-town realness of the characters and believablity of the perfomances helps the audience identify with the Billy's plight. Especially notalble, are Billy's father played by Gary Lewis, who is the fulcrum on which the story pivots and Julie Walters, the dance instuctor who encourages Billy to pursue his love. The shred use of a hugely varied soundtrack drives the heart of the film, but one does not have to like music and dancing to identify with Billy Elliot and his plight. It strkes a chord with anyone who has ever feared being different and afraid to pursue their dreams. Small note: Understanding of the thick Irish accent is increased greatly with use of closed-captioning. Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: How refreshing!
Review: Really a great movie, very refreshing compared to all the movies showing these days! I have very much enjoyed this movie. I strongly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Okay I guess
Review: This film was enormously popular in England. It is a young boy rising up against the elements set against the background of the miners strike type film. Our intrepid hero is a young working class lad who's dad sets aside small amounts of dole money so that he can learn to box and look after himself. Instead of boxing out lad is drawn to the other side of the hall where some girls are practicing ballet. He heads over and starts to take lessons. He knows that his dad will not approve so that he tells no one. The young lad has a bit of a talent and impresses his teacher Julie Walters from Educating Rita. Julie is trapped in a loveless and pointless marriage to someone who is overweight and is attracted to our young hero as one aspect of beauty in an otherwise messy life. Our hero's father finds out from his boxing teacher that his son has been hovering on the dark side and there is a confrontation. In the end the dads love wins out against his prejudices of what a man should do. The climax is set in a strange ... version of Swan Lake in which the various swan parts are played by male dancers. Our hero has been able to escape the dead end of working class life and move into the tertiary sector. The film is sort of okay but I found it hard to get into. I preferred the similar but less artificial Bootmen. Still that just may be nationalism. Despite my prejudices the film is well crafted original and was much loved.
Rating:
Summary: Sleeper of the Year!
Review: Billy Elliot is a fantastic movie for the whole family...and, trust me, there aren't too many of those out there...At its heart, it's about a tough boy who wants to do ballet...which is not accepted by his blue-collar family struggling with a labor strike in England and the death of the boy's mother (which occurs before the movie starts). The acting is first-rate, the story is original, and it's full of smart, Brit-style humor and gritty performances by the adults. It'll have you cheering! This one's a keeper.
Rating:
Summary: Almost flawless
Review: I was prepared to love this film when I read the descriptions, and with one minor exception, my wish was fulfilled. This is a compelling story of a young boy's courage to pursue his dream, despite its being completely antithetical to the cultural expectations of the town in which he lived. In a mining town, where men are men, Billy (Jamie Bell) slips away each night after boxing practice to learn ballet with the girls. In spite of enormous social pressure and a disapproving father, Billy persists in his dream to become a ballet dancer and emerges triumphant. This is a story that is less about dance than it is about social interaction. The incredible pressure to be what one is expected to be is pitted elegantly against the unyielding desire to pursue one's ambitions. Also woven into the story are various themes about people who are different and how they handle being on the fringe. The film does an excellent job of developing various characters and making us love them, foibles and all. My only reservation is that the film overemphasized certain of the human stories (particularly the minors' strike) at the expense of the dance. We see glimpses of Billy's progress as a dancer, but he seems to explode from spastic and gawky to an accomplished tap artist with little transition. Also, there seems to be a disconnect between his exceptional tap skills and his tentative ballet skills, which is so discrepant that it is hard to believe it is the same dancer. While the dance theme is clearly subordinate to the human issues, I felt it should have been more believable and better developed to complete the film. Not much more could have been asked of Jamie Bell in this role. In his film debut he is mesmerizing, both in his acting and dance performances. Bell always found exactly the right emotion to portray Billy's conflicts, disappointments and stubborn persistence. Bell is the keystone that holds the entire film together and he is the reason it succeeds so completely. The ensemble supporting Bell is also first rate as is the direction of Stephen Daldry. Daldry gives the story that quaint small town British feel, full of brutal honesty and simple human truths. Daldry's greatest success is in the pure sincerity of the actors' performances making every frame realistic and convincing, and earning him an Oscar nomination for best director in only his second film. Julie Walters, also nominated for best supporting actress, does a fine job as the tough and determined ballet teacher, and Gary Lewis gives a standout performance as Billy's dad. This is an inspirational film that is just a hair short of perfect. I rated it a 9/10. With a little better development of the dance theme it might have been flawless. Nonetheless, it is one of the most compelling and uplifting films of the year with a positive and upbeat message that is sure to capture your heart.
Rating: 
Summary: Nay a thousand times 't nay
Review: One does try as hard as one can to avoid the working classes, although poverty and lack of transport make this problematic. If curiosity about how they actually live their lives gets the better of one then what safer way than home video? My last such glimpse into a strange and unfamiliar world was through Ken Loach's 'Kes', in which a frustrated and alienated young boy, cowed by an aggressive brother and the uncertainty of a benighted future down the pits, discovers that his best friend is a Kestrel. Quickly crushing any aesthesia brought on by Loach's compassion for the great unwashed, it has taken the hyperbol surrounding 'Billy Elliot' to take me less than expeditiously down memory lane once more. How have the lives of the working classes changed thirty years on? Apparently they sleep two to a bedroom instead of six as I had once erroneously supposed and have inside toilets. When a solitary worker has the temerity to want to do a day's work he is chased through a succession of working class dwellings by fifty riot police in full regalia until caught. It's gratifying to see such a realistic prioritizing of police resources on film and the comforting knowledge of the tax payer's money well spent. Apart from that, little has changed except for one egrigious detail. Your actual working classes pirouette down the high street. Billy Elliot, a frustrated and alienated young boy cowed by an aggressive brother and the uncertainty of a benighted future down the pits, discovers that his best friend is a ballet tutu. Also, his second best friend just might be a transvestite. This irresponsibility on the part of the British film industry should not go unanswered. This is not Hampstead. Encouraging the lower orders to experience culture only leads to books, and books lead to union membership and then (God help us) secret ballots. I think the need to appeal to the American market has reared it's capitulant head here. Pleas for sexual tolerance and finding your inner child are more important than a roof over one's head and the dignity of (hard) labour. Kestrels are aggressive, macho symbols that may lower the tone and pull a boy's false eye lashes off. Of course, we must take all these changes on trust, but how accurate is this to real working class lives? Unlike the ending to 'Kes' which leaves the audience basking in the warm glow of their own undoubtedly justified prejudices, 'Billy Elliot' leaves us suspicious and distrustful at it's challenge to the natural order. Yes, we may let the odd one escape to become rock musicians, sportsman and soap stars, but let us not get carried away. This is an American fortune cookie, not OUR Britain, thank you very much. Now, one may be prepared to sit through working class life when the film making calibre of Ken Loach is involved, but when confronted by the almost obdurately dire artistic decisions and cack direction of Stephen Daldry, the urge to hit the off switch is overwhelming. There are, no doubt, worse experiences one might be subjected to in one's drawing room than 'Billy Elliot' such as listening to pibroch while having your leg chewed off by a shark, but it's a close run thing. It may be in the unlikely event prejudice (heaven forbid), but I thought this film was quite staggeringly, fall off Ben Nevis bad. It's jocund liveliness cannot hide it's jejunity (and trying saying that fast, I guarantee it will be more comprehensible than 'Billy Elliot'). And if I have to endure one more scene in which a minor turns to another minor (as opposed to a miner) and after a long pause says "do you want to play hide the salami with me" or words to that effect, I shall emigrate to Botswana and I don't even know where that is. Do contemporary writers think this is cute and cuddly coming from children, as opposed to deeply creepy put in their mouths by an adult? May I suggest that in an act of charity not dissimilar to their salt of the earth goodness depicted in 'Billy Elliot', our actual working classes band together to confer on the writer Mr Hall, the useful and life changing gift of an escritoire?
Rating:
Summary: Excellent film - shame about the comments
Review: There is little I can add to the praise already given to this film in the previous reviews. This is an excellent film which is moving without being sentimental and truly uplifting. The acting is superb - worthy of oscars but obviously not within the privileged circle that could get them. What has inspired me to write a review is not really to provide further acclaim but because of the many comments criticising the film because of the 'thick' British accents or because of the language. Firstly, the accents are County Durham accents NOT "British" (compare with the Queen if you really can't see the difference). What do you expect? Should a film set in a working class mining community in County Durham have actors speaking in BBC English or even American accents just to please the American market? Why is there this expectation that everything has to be homogenised to be acceptable? I personally have a lot of difficulty understanding the American accents in many of the films that we see (and we don't get subtitles!) but I do not complain because I assume that this is the way that people actually speak there? This is the way people actually speak in Durham and thus adds to the realism of the film. Secondly there have been many complaints about the language - some saying it was unnecessary. Again, I am afraid this is the way that the people being portrayed speak and it would be unrealistic to censor the language. As one enlightened reviewer alluded, language is harmless - at least the film did not contain the gratuitous violence, gun culture and 'drugs as a way of life' themes that a vast number of American films do. Films with much more harmful content get away with lighter certifications - why? Why is there this prudish attitude towards language but a blind acceptance of the portrayal of the sickness of society. Maybe it's what you're used to? This film portrays the things that are good about people. Their courage, their perseverance, their triumphs in the face of adversity, their love. What does a little bad language matter? Get real America? - People do speak differently from you elsewhere you know and people also have values and qualities that rise above their vocabulary.
Rating: 
Summary: No
Review: This film is, largely speaking, nothing more than a limpid piece of sh*t. Sorry, all you people who found it "inspiring" etc., but to me some of the scenes were so corny I could barely watch. The scene where Billy is afraid to answer the panel, then, upon leaving, he is asked "How do you feel when you dance?" I could feel it, I was thinking 'please don't do it Billy, don't launch into cheesy sentimental crap'. But his response was worse than I had imagined. "I feel free...like a bird...I can spread my wings and fly." NO!! There is only so much tacky sentimentality you can take, (not much) and this film takes it much much too far. The sentiment may be all lovely and nice, but try to express it in a way which doesn't make me sink into my shoes with embarrassment. The reason I have given it 2 stars is that I thought the sub-plot (the miners' strike) was rather powerful and touching at times (Billy's dad in despair at the pit after crossing the picket line was genuinely moving) but this story was far too much in the background for me. Too much of the corny trash. Sorry. Not good. Watch the Shawshank Redemption for a truly inspiring tale of hope.
Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: This is a great movie about a boy 11 yrs old who takes an interest in the ballet classes when his boxing teacher lets the ballet class share the gym. One thing leads to another and he gives up boxing to take ballet lessons. This takes place in a mining town in the north of England NOT IRELAND.The miners are out on strike and when Billy's father finds out about the ballet and is told by the ballet teacher that Billy has talent and should audition in London. All the miners when they hear about Billy take up a collection to send him there. A great family movie if you overlook the swearing,and you can if your ear is not tuned in properly.
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