Movie Review: Billy Elliot

It's that time of the year again, the reason Netflix was created. I've been waiting for an opportunity to finally sit and watch the movies established in my queue for some time now. Their presence at my coffee table blew pangs of guilt my way whenever I reached for my glass.

But the guilt was not motivating enough to pick up the blasted DVDs and slap them into the player. I guess I felt that there was much more to do then watching movies--that guilt was stronger. Perhaps it's something my mother taught me...there's always something that needed to be done.

But now that summer vacation is here, the guilt has taken form in the opposite.

I have to watch these movies and broaden my horizons.

Guilt is not the only gift of my family's matriarch. Growing up, she had a dancing school--so a movie like Billy Elliot takes on a new, more profound meaning then it would for the average Joe. I've seen a gazillion movies about dancing growing up--and my perspective is far different. I've never once interpreted dancing men as effette or gay; my images were that of womanziers surrounded by the world's most impossibly lithe and beautiful women.

I don't see Just Jack doing ballroom, I see Patrick Swazye and Fred Astaire. That says something when I came to this movie as well.

It's a story we've heard time and again, so there were no surprises there. A young boy likes dance, his working class family (in this case, devoid of a mother, also seen elsewhere [think Disney movies] says no, it's not for men. They come to their senses and try to get him into a dancing school.

The reviews all scream, "this is feel good," or "a dancing Rocky."

And they are correct, in many ways. I've seen a crapload of dancing movies and musicals. This is the same as everyone of them. But I didn't mind.

There are some outstanding performances here that make me want to watch. As the 11 year old ( I had a hard time with that, his maturity as either and actor or person shone through that he was much older then the numbers the script gave him) Billy Elliot, Jamie Bell's expressions and intensity made me want to watch the screen. His father seemed to share that intensity to an extent that I wanted to see what happened next.

That's good. For rehashes tend to get bogged down in the motions of actors who know better.

It is my belief, like women in the late 60's, that men are undergoing a profound change in their role. The Old School is holding on as best as it can, pouring cash into Right Wing idiocy and churches, trying to keep what they percieved as the correct mannerisms for musculinity. But men's needs are changing. In a world of growing comfort, where war is more invention then need, men don't have to kill the bear and bring home the hide anymore. Technology has made the world an easier place and it's requiring that families are restructured.

In the last few years, the term metrosexual has surfaced and I believe it is a sign that the men of the world are truly having to give up everything they own. That's why they are so pissed all the time. THat is why they are running to Promise Keepers meetings and supporting a Marriage Amendment to the Constitution. It's a way of holding on something that is disappearing. Their power; their recongintion to what they feel is important.

They fail to realize that change is undying and the tide cannot be held back.

Which brings me to a symbolism I noticed in this picture that I don't believe was intentional but something that appeared to me. The men in this picture won't let Billy be who he is, prefering to hold onto the Old School image of masculinty. But then they realize, that Old School is not paying the bills or doing anything for themselves or the boy and change.

It brings Billy's message a bit further into the here-and-now and gives the picture more weight. No wonder it was a minor hit. Inside, everyone knew the message and could understand it.

So, yes, it's a good movie, even if it's a rehashing. If you like dancing, sure, watch it, but it's truly middle-of-road stuff, fluff and decent.