Billy Elliot

Billy Elliot is a 2000 British dance drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Lee Hall. Set in County Durham, England during the 1984–85 miners' strike, the film is about a working-class boy who discovers his passion for ballet, despite his father's objection and the negative stereotype associated of being a male ballet dancer. The film stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, Gary Lewis as his father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher.

Adapted from a play called Dancer by Lee Hall, development on the film began in 1999. Around 2,000 boys were considered for the role of Billy before Bell was eventually chosen for the role. Filming began in the North of England in August 1999. Greg Brenman and Jon Finn served as producers, while Stephen Warbeck composed the film's score. Billy Elliot is a co-production between BBC Films, Tiger Aspect Pictures and Working Title Films.

The film premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, and then began a wider theatrical release on 29 September 2000 by Universal Pictures. Billy Elliot received positive critical response and commercial success, earning £73 million (US$109.3 million) on a £3 million budget (US$5 million) worldwide. At the 2001 British Academy Film Awards, the film received thirteen award nominations and won three. The film also earned three Academy Award nominations, including for Best Director and Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In 2001, the film was adapted into a novel by Melvin Burgess. The story was also adapted for the West End stage as Billy Elliot the Musical in 2005; it opened in Australia in 2007 and on Broadway in 2008.

Plot 
In 1984, Billy Elliot, an 11-year-old from the fictional Everington in County Durham, England, loves to dance and has hopes of becoming a professional ballet dancer. Billy lives with his widowed father, Jackie, and older brother, Tony, both coal miners out on strike (the latter being the union bully), and also his maternal grandmother, who has Alzheimer's disease and once aspired to be a professional dancer.

Billy's father sends him to the gym to learn boxing, but Billy dislikes the sport. He happens to see a ballet class that is using the gym while their usual basement studio is temporarily being used as a soup kitchen for the striking miners. Unknown to Jackie, Billy joins the ballet class. When Jackie discovers this, he forbids Billy to take any more ballet. But, passionate about dancing, Billy secretly continues lessons with the help of his dance teacher, Sandra Wilkinson.

Mrs. Wilkinson believes that Billy is talented enough to study at the Royal Ballet School in London, but due to Tony's arrest during a clash between police and striking miners, Billy misses the audition. Mrs. Wilkinson tells Jackie about the missed opportunity, but fearing that Billy will be considered to be gay, both Jackie and Tony are outraged at the prospect of him becoming a professional ballet dancer.

Over Christmas, Billy learns his best friend Michael is gay. Billy is supportive of his friend. Later, Jackie catches Billy dancing in the gym and realises his son is truly gifted; he resolves to do whatever it takes to help Billy attain his dream. Mrs. Wilkinson tries to persuade Jackie to let her pay for the audition, but he replies that Billy is his son and he does not need charity. Jackie attempts to cross the picket line to pay for the trip to London, but Tony stops him. Instead, his fellow miners and the neighbourhood raise some money and Jackie pawns Billy's mother's jewellery to cover the cost, and Jackie takes him to London to audition.

Although very nervous, Billy performs well, but he punches another boy in frustration at the audition, fearing that he has ruined his chances of attaining his dream. He is rebuked by the review board, but when asked what it feels like when he is dancing, he struggles for words but describes it as being "like electricity". Seemingly rejected, Billy returns home with his father. Sometime later, the Royal Ballet School sends him a letter of acceptance, coinciding with the end of the miners' strike, and he leaves home for London.

In 1998, 25-year-old Billy takes the stage to perform the Swan in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, as Jackie, Tony, and Michael watch from the audience; his father is visibly moved by the performance.

Cast

 Jamie Bell as Billy Elliot 
 Adam Cooper as Billy aged 25
 Julie Walters as Sandra Wilkinson
 Gary Lewis as Jackie Elliot
 Jamie Draven as Tony Elliot
 Jean Heywood as Grandma
 Stuart Wells as Michael Caffrey
 Merryn Owen as Michael aged 25
 Nicola Blackwell as Debbie Wilkinson
 Colin Maclachlan as Tom Wilkinson
 Mike Elliott as George Watson
 Billy Fane as Mr Braithwaite
 Janine Birkett as Jenny Elliot
 Charlie Hardwick as Sheila Briggs
 Matthew James Thomas as Simon
 Stephen Mangan as Dr. Crane
 Patrick Malahide as Royal Ballet School principal
 Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Royal Ballet School vice-principal
 Neil North as Royal Ballet School tutor
 Lee Williams as Royal Ballet School tutor

Production

Development 
Lee Hall developed Billy Elliot from his play Dancer, which premiered as a rehearsed reading in 1998 at the Live Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne. He was heavily influenced by photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's book Step by Step, about a dancing school in nearby North Shields. Writing in 2009, Hall said that "almost every frame of Billy Elliot was influenced by Step by Step ... as every member of the design team carried around their own copy."

Hall met with director Stephen Daldry, who was working at the Royal Court Theatre at the time. At first, Daldry was not convinced with the script, but said, "I liked the emotional honesty of Billy Elliot. Also Lee writes brilliant kids. And there's a series of themes in it I rather enjoyed: Grief; finding means of self-identification through some sort of creative act, in this case dance; and the miner's strike itself." Working Title Films approached Daldry to become director and he accepted the deal. The BBC also financed the project.

Casting 
Thousands of boys were considered for the lead role. The producers were looking for a boy in a specific geographical area with a dance background. Jamie Bell had about seven auditions in total before eventually on 22 May 1999, it was announced that he would play the lead role in the film. Adam Cooper and Julie Walters were in early talks to join the cast. Walters called the script "moving", explaining "It was a diamond in the sand. ... I loved the character, and the fact that she was disappointed on every level possible. She was so grim and jaded. Her relationship with the boy was so unusual".

On 3 June 1999 it was reported that Gary Lewis, Jamie Draven, Jean Heywood, Stuart Wells, Merryn Owen, Nicola Blackwell, Colin Maclachlan, Mike Elliott, Billy Fane, Janine Birkett, Charlie Hardwick, Matthew James Thomas and Stephen Mangan were also in final talks to join the film, and Patrick Malahide and Barbara Leigh-Hunt were added to the cast, playing the Royal Ballet School principals. On 17 June 1999, Neil North and Lee Williams joined the cast of the film, playing the Royal Ballet School tutors.

Filming
Daldry remarked in an interview, "The shooting schedule was a nightmare; we only had seven weeks." Most of the film including the interior of the Elliot home was shot on location in the Easington Colliery area, with the producers using over 400 locals as extras. The mining scenes were filmed at the Ellington and Lynemouth Colliery in Northumberland, with some filming in Dawdon, Middlesbrough and Newcastle upon Tyne. Alnwick Street and Andrew Street, where the characters live, were of several streets demolished in 2003 after becoming derelict.

The cemetery scene was filmed at Lynemouth Cemetery. School scenes were filmed in Langley Park Primary School, County Durham. Other filming locations include the Green Drive Railway Viaduct in Seaham, Tees Transporter Bridge, New Wardour Castle and Theatre Royal in Haymarket, London.

Music

Stephen Warbeck scored the incidental music for the film. Polydor Records released the soundtrack on 11 March 2002, which includes several well-known glam rock and punk songs from T. Rex and The Clash. The soundtrack also contains pieces of dialogue from the film.

Reception

Box office 

Billy Elliot was originally released at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival under the title Dancer. It was later decided to re-title the film Billy Elliot to avoid confusion with Dancer In The Dark, another film at Cannes that year. Billy Elliot was theatrically released on 29 September 2000 by Universal Pictures and Focus Features. Against expectations, the film earned a worldwide total of $109,280,263. Universal Studios Home Entertainment released Billy Elliot on DVD and VHS on 25 October 2001 and on Blu-ray Disc on 10 January 2012.

Critical response 
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based on 117 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Billy Elliot is a charming movie that can evoke both laughter and tears." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, calling the film "much parable and fantasy as it is realistic". He said Bell's performance was "engaging", Lewis was "convincing" and Walters was "spirited and colourful". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised the film saying, "This is a film with a lot of charm, a lot of humour and a lot of heart. Daldry's direction and the screenplay by Lee Hall distinguish themselves further in the discreet, intelligent way [...] Billy Elliot has a freshness that makes it a pleasure to watch; it's a very emphatic success". David Rooney of Variety also praised the cast writing, "Relationships between all the characters are well observed — the father and his sons, the two brothers, and Billy and his grandmother, his friend Michael and jaded Mrs. Wilkinson — all of them yielding sweet, unforced feel-good moments". Rooney also praised the cinematography, visuals and soundtrack in showing Billy's rebelliousness. O'Sullivan in The Independent wrote the cast are "near perfect", adding the film is a "slice of escapism as you could wish for". William Gallagher from the BBC gave the film five stars out of five, writing, "It's a simple tale but one that is extremely well told and acted. Fittingly for a story about dance, it doesn't put a foot wrong and is engrossing, funny, very sad, very moving and very uplifting."

Some critics gave a mixed response. Time Out believes that, "Daldry overuses the dance as a metaphor for escape and frustration, and choreographer Peter Darling's grandstanding ballet numbers sit a little uneasily, given the realist comedy pitch". A. O. Scott of The New York Times notes that there were "patches of thinness and predictability", and that "the first half seems to acknowledge its own triteness". However, he compliments the pacing of the scenes and the actors who "inhabit their roles like second-hand suits". Holcomb, writing for IndieWire, took issue with the "odd, unsuccessful mix of theatrical whimsy and social realism" and a scene in which he describes as a "cringe-inducing ’80s-style music video routine".

Themes and analysis 
Poverty and social class have been seen as major themes of the film. Author Rebecca Mahon observed the film has a realistic setting; the early scenes emphasising the miners' strike, the death of Billy's mother and the family's financial situation. Daldry adds, "It doesn't matter where you are in the world, people understand the idea that you're part of an industrial, working class group that is being discarded. And its question—of what happens to communities devastated by de-industrialisation and privatisation". In addition to social class, Daldry states that the film is about finding a voice—"someone trying to express himself or herself". Koller-Alonso writes that gender differences are expressed by showing girls attending ballet classes, while their male counterparts are having boxing lessons. Homosexuality, a taboo subject in the 1980s, as well as police brutality are depicted and explored in the film.

Accolades

Stage musical

After the film's release, English singer-songwriter Elton John collaborated with the film's screenwriter Lee Hall to produce a musical adaptation of the film, which premiered 31 March 2005 at the Victoria Palace Theatre on the West End. Many of the film's crew took part in the stage production, including director Stephen Daldry and choreographer Peter Darling. The musical received positive reviews and ran for over 4,000 performances before closing in April 2016.

See also
 Brassed Off
 The Stars Look Down

References

Bibliography
 Production notes

Further reading
 Jacqueline Jones, "Small Towns and Big Dreams: Meditations on Two Mining-Town Movies" Perspectives on History (Feb 2011) 49#2 pp 30–31, compares film with "How Green Was My Valley".

External links
 
 
 
 

Category:2000 films
Category:2000s dance films
Category:2000s comedy-drama films
Category:British films
Category:British comedy-drama films
Category:British coming-of-age films
Category:British dance films
Category:2000s coming-of-age films
Category:English-language films
Category:Films directed by Stephen Daldry
Category:Films scored by Stephen Warbeck
Category:Directorial debut films
Category:Best British Film Empire Award winners
Category:Films about ballet
Category:Films about the labor movement
Category:Films set in County Durham
Category:Films set in 1984
Category:Films set in 1985
Category:Films set in 1999
Category:Films shot in England
Category:Films shot in Northumberland
Category:UK miners' strike (1984–85)
Category:BBC Films films
Category:StudioCanal films
Category:Working Title Films films
Category:Films adapted into plays
Category:Mining in film
Category:Films with screenplays by Lee Hall