Billy Elliot

Having recently seen the West End production, I was pretty keen to watch the Billy Elliot movie on which the musical is based.  Yes, I realise the movie was released in 2000 but you know, I was busy doing whatever it was for the past 10 years and never managed to watch it, even accidentally while channel surfing.  Anyway, I can happily report that the musical is a faithful retelling of the movie, almost scene by scene!  (That's a pretty amazing feat).  It's one of my pet peeves when new incarnations differ too much from the original, especially if the differences are of no benefit.

Despite all my recent exposure to the Geordie accent, there were times in the movie when I really did not have an effing clue.  Subtitles would have helped me at some parts.  Nevertheless, it wasn't too much of a distraction.  I'm not going to bother with a synopsis, you can just wiki that.  

You could say that Billy Elliot is nothing new and summed up, it falls into the 'Chase Your Dreams and Be Yourself' genre.  If that's the case, I much prefer this cliché over many others.  There's no better lesson than to teach people to be happy and ruv themselves. *hugs myself*  However clichéd the baseline plot may be, you can't help but become involved in Billy's struggle to become a ballet dancer.

Despite knowing EXACTLY what was going to happen in the movie, I cried like girl.  (It's a good thing I am of the fairer sex as it gives me a better excuse, but men should be allowed to cry too!)  It probably didn't help that I was watching the movie at 1am and was fairly exhausted.  The strong performances of Billy and his father only made it worse.  I cried at Billy's mother's letter, I cried at Billy's Dad crossing the picket line after realising Billy's talents and then I cried again when Billy was accepted into ballet school.  I knew all of this would happen!  It's like how I cried when Marley died in Marley and Me.  I knew the dog would die!  Ok it wasn't all crying.  There were some nice one-liners and I especially liked Billy's reaction to the plot of Swan Lake - "Sounds crap."

The final scene when we see an adult Billy (now a principal ballet dancer) perform with his family in the audience is errr kinda hot.  Like wow, check out adult Billy's athletic back!  Nevermind the Swan Lake pantaloons and emo eye make-up, he's still hot.  Oh and I cried seeing Billy's father tearing up at seeing his son on stage.  (Shout out to Mama Chua!)

Anyway, I can't believe I had not watched this film earlier.  It's definitely something I would see again and in fact, it kinda makes me want to re-watch the musical when I hit London in September.