DVD Review: Billy Elliot Special Edition

Set against the backdrop of 80’s Britain at the heart of the miner’s strike, Billy Elliot is a tale of a young lad facing the odds to strive for his own individuality based loosely on the life of Royal Ballet dancer Philip Marsden. Billy (the incredible debut and Bafta winning role by Jamie Bell), in his early teens, lives in a male dominated household. Both his father (Gary Lewis) and brother, Tony (Jamie Draven), are on the picket lines at the local coal mine, so Billy is left to look after his senile Gran, in-between school and his boxing lessons. It’s during one of these lessons that he discovers Mrs. Wilkinson (award winning and Oscar nominated role for Julie Walters) and her dance class.

Growing up in a small mining town in the North of England, it is expected for you to grow up and become a miner like the generations before you. For Billy to hang up his grandfather’s boxing gloves and strap on a pair of ballet shoes would have been too much for his working-class family, on the brink of poverty, to handle. So he starts going to Mrs. Wilkinson’s dance classes in secret, her in turn becoming almost a surrogate for his dead mother. Could this be the escape Billy is striving for ? The more Billy dances, the more potential is shown, and Mrs. Wilkinson wants him to audition for the Royal Ballet. Its here the movie has to deal with the striking miner’s morals and working-class attitudes and some minor stereotyping of the characters. For instance Billy’s Dad equates all dancers as being homosexuals and his brother Tony, looks more to this as an embarrassment and disgrace to the family because he has chosen ballet instead of pulling on a pair of hob nailed boots.

The mains are great in their roles despite the simplicity of the plot on show. More depth to the characters is shown however in the deleted scenes on disc 2, especially of note is the character of Tony whose role has been trimmed down to no more than a background figure which is hard to sympathise with. For all its little problems the movie as a whole is a simple story well told. Putting the worker's politics aside, this is charming in many ways, an uplifting tale, set against a harsh historic background. The reason for the timing of this 2 disc special edition is to coincide with the release of 'Billy Elliot the Musical'. So it’s not surprising that this should also be covered in the special features section. The first section on disc 2, entitled ‘The Musical’ and has three short features: 'The Real Billy Elliot Diaries' – the original makers of the movie get together with Elton John and take three ordinary boys to play Billy on the stage. From different backgrounds, the boys are shown in their day-to-day lives. 'From Screen to Stage' is a short 20 minutes worth at how the movie made it to the stage, directed again by Stephen Daldry with the original writer lee Hall back on board. By coincidence when the movie was shown at Cannes, a member of the audience suggested doing this as a stage musical, this was Sir Elton John. It shows the search for the right ingredients to make it work, namely the young boys for the starring roles.

'Billy Elliot the Musical' is just a promo trailer for the stage musical, which opened in March this year. ‘The Movie’ is the second section of special features. This contains 'Breaking Free', a making of documentary that appeared on the previous DVD release. There are deleted and extended scenes too, these have been grouped to give you a more in depth feel for the characters and here we can clearly see that what is on the screen is only a shadow of what Billy’s older brother Tony (Draven) could have been. All have an optional audio commentary by director Daldry. The final and third segment is ‘The Music’, this is a real curio and plays like a substitute for the lack of an audio commentary on disc 1. Each of the songs (T Rex, The Clash and The Jam amongst them) featured throughout the movie are here with their respective placing of movie visuals and Daldry gives you a warts and all commentary on the film in general. All extras have subtitles for the hard of hearing.

'Billy Elliot: Special Edition' is available for pre-order in the UK via Amazon UK and is only available as a single disc release in the US via Amazon.