Billy Elliot

(2000, Great Britain) 
Director: Stephen Daldry 
Starring: Jamie Bell ; Julie Walters ; Gary Lewis

As with Another Country, Beautiful Thing, and My Life in Pink, the minute Billy Elliot ends and you've finally recaptured your breath and sponged up your tears, you'll know you've seen a modern gay classic. Here's a film you'll remember, not so much for its great direction (and the direction is good) or for its superb acting (some of which is quite heavenly). No, the virtuous Billy Elliot surpasses most other films you'll see this or any year with its acute emotional honesty in capturing what it's like to be different, and how hard it is to safeguard that otherness, to nurture it, and to make it work for you. 

Did I mention that 11-year-old Billy (Jamie Bell - read the PQ interview) is not gay? To be fair, though, he hasn't decided as of yet, although he's pretty sure he's straight. At least he's definitely not a cross-dresser like his best mate at school, who has a crush on him. But what's the rush to chisel out one's sexuality? Billy's not ready for making out yet. What he is ready for are ballet lessons. And why should that make you a poof? 

Tell that to his dad (Gary Lewis) and the rest of the inhabitants of the small Northern England mining town in which he dwells. Boxing, my lad, will make you a man. But Billy will have none of it, so he takes ballet lessons on the sly from an encouraging dance teacher (Julie Walters - read the PQ interview). The results are spectacular. Soon the boy is dancing on rooftops -- and you'll want to join him, tapping out praises to the sensational newcomer Bell and all involved. 

--Brandon Judell

Source : Obtained from Planetout.Com