BILLY ELLIOT

BILLY ELLIOT

Directed by Stephen Daldry. Starring Julie Walters, Jamie Bell, Gary Lewis

Based on the rags-to-riches tale of a hard-up Durham twelve-year-old from a striking-miner family, whose massive passion for ballet holds him out the promise of escape, Billy Elliot is so bland it leaves you on the point of tears: it strives to cut it as a kitchen-sink, Kes-style fairytale, but is ultimately too inconsequential and apolitical to land any emotional or dramatic punches.

Set in 1984, the film recounts our eponymous hero's struggle to rise above the ravages of Thatcherite deprivation and realise his potential as a ballet-dancer (what boy wouldn't?). A good-natured if inherently uninteresting creature, young Billy loves nothing better than to mince around on a ballet stage, but is handicapped by all manner of predictable background details (dead mother, disapproving dad, granny in the throes of Alzheimer's, bullying older brother).

Biggest problem of all: his stout, thoroughly working-class father favours boxing over ballet, and is profoundly disturbed when his poncey progeny is discovered to be prancing around in a tutu for personal pleasure.

However, support and encouragement are at hand in the form of middle-class ballet teacher Mrs. Wilkinson (played by the foul spectre that is Julie Walters). A tough, chain-smoking old fishwife type, she is resolute in her determination that little Billy gain entry into the Royal Ballet School in London, and eventually manages to beat Billy's auld lad down with a finely-honed mixture of class condescension and gale-force nagging. From here on in, it's straightforward triumph-over-adversity melodrama, executed so clunkily and predictably it makes The Full Monty look like social realism.

If the premise seems to promise a particularly gritty take on the coming-of-age story - replete with vicious riot police and lamentations on the North-South divide - the film's tone soon plummets to that of easy-option feelgood banality. Financial hardships caused by the strike are conveniently resolved by a return to work, and instead of addressing the setting (or characters) with anything approximating depth, Billy Elliot reduces everything to simplistic stereotypes. The posh southern Royal-Ballet-School types are well beyond parody (think The Beano's Lord Snooty), while the narrative is padded out with one excruciating dance number after another, to highly unpleasant effect.

British reviews of Billy Elliot have varied from ecstatic to orgasmic ('life-affirming', 'breathtaking', 'beautiful' and 'simply perfect' have been some of the more restrained rave-ups). Viewed without the benefit of delusional jingoism, however, it stands up as little more than parochial, self-satisfied dross. There are one or two minor things to commend about Billy Elliot: a few traces of visual flair, a half-hearted but sincere stab at political radicalism, and an adequate lead performance from 14-year-old Jamie Bell.

But in terms of social relevance and entertainment value, it's right down there with Whatever Happened To Harold Smith, and serves as a textbook illustration of all that's wrong with British cinema.