BILLY ELLIOT (2000) *** Set against the backdrop of the coal miner's strike, you might expect more politics. Instead the strike, and the lifestyles of its participants at street level, is used as a metaphor set against spiritual freedom as represented by dance. It's all effectively done, but Stephen Daldry brings it along at a leisurely pace, all the more effective to stun you out of, my dear. So slowly that there's a feeling that the entire thing might collapse, even while young Jamie Bell is demonstrating a nearly spectacular range as an actor, and Morpheus is fended off by occasional injections of T. Rex. But the second half is moving, spellbinding, as Gary Lewis takes the reins as coal miner da. His acting is flawless, and the character, even on paper, deserves further study. The father-son dynamic, the one that...you know the one. The son's position is easy enough to understand--it's the life force, the Will to Whatever, mixed with varying measures of misunderstanding and oversight. It's the father who has the more difficult role. The father has to break his mold of preconception, which too often also involves destruction of the psychic construct, the legacy, of his own father. So it's especially tough for the ones who never made the break on their own; to allow it in their sons. That's what Lewis is dealing with, and he portrays it without the slightest suggestion that he knows what's going on, and at the same time with a growing sense of, with expressions reflecting prayers of liberation. It's an old story, the allure of passion (set forth here beautifully in dance) against the dreariness of those who have accepted the options they were given, and are now frustrated that you won't do the same. Ego and betrayal, and the redemptive force of motion replacing intransigence.
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