Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry, is set in Durham (Northern England) during the eighties. The film basically tells the story of a young boy whose passion is dancing; and its struggle to accept his vocation and to show it to the rest of the world, despite his family’s situation.
It is important to analyze the main characters of this film to get to know Billy’s influences and pressures, and the actual importance of his effort:
- Jackie Elliot (Billy’s father): he’s a mistreated, revolutionary miner who reflects the suffering of his whole life. The character experiments a big change all along the film: he refuses from his son’s hobby and try to stop him to do ballet; but suddenly he realises that he has got a really talented son and makes a great effort to try to give Billy the life he deserves.
- Tony Elliot (Billy’s brother): he follows his father’s revolutionary steps and acquires an extreme behaviour which will make the familiar situation even more difficult. He finds his brother’s interest for dancing a proper effeminate hobby. He does a great effort to get to accept Billy’s goal and the means his father is taking to provide him.
- Mrs. Wilkinson (ballet teacher): she has a terrible familiar situation and breaks out through ballet. She is Billy’s unconditional support from the beginning of his conflict and tries him to achieve what she has never achieved.
- Billy Elliot: he is a young boy searching his own life’s sense, since he cannot find its place in the mainstream he’s supposed to live in. He found some consolation and happiness while he is dancing, but confessing his passion would cause an extremely embarrassing situation for him. Moreover the feeling that his late mother would be his only support, takes him to undercover the ballet lessons until he realises that he has to demonstrate his abilities to the rest of the world, even if he has to fight his own family.
Dealing with the language aspects of the film, I found it a little bit weird to understand in some scenes: the language variety they use is colloquial the most of the time, with lots of swearwords and, sometimes, wrong structures such us “me” instead of the possessive pronoun “my”. I think that this use of the language is important in the film, since it helps the characters to emphasize their low social stratum and it gives more drama to the situation.
From my point of view it is a fond story. Personally, I found the magic of that film in the fact that a boy, whose fate is to be a mistreated miner, find himself refraining from the violent situation he lives in, through ballet: an inconceivable activity for a person like him. In addition, it contains the message: “never give up pursuing your dreams”, which is suitable for everyone. From my experience I can admit that it is a hard task when your condition doesn’t help the aim that you are bound to achieve, but it is much more pleasant when you see your progress than if you had not made such a great effort.
