Date: 13th October 2000

Movie Review: Billy Elliot


Critics are divided over whether the hit British film Billy Elliot, already being touted by some of them as a sure-bet Oscar nominee, is a classic or a manipulative crock. Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News calls the film, about a coal-miner's son who dreams of becoming a ballet star,"a surefire crowd-pleaser," while Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News grumbles that "everything about Billy is as surefire as it could possibly have been engineered." Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail comments that "this rags-to-tights tale is not so much great as it is highly ingratiating." But those who praise the movie are definitely in the majority. Susan Wloszczyna in USA Today, for example, writes: "If Dickens had written Flashdance after seeing The Full Monty, it probably would have come out something like this infectious, feel-good bundle of ambition in the face of adversity."

Source: Studio Briefing