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100People who see it may feel like dancing out of the theater afterward. Go for it.
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88It's not just a movie about an underdog who fights the odds, it's about following one's heart -- despite the obstacles.
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88You'd be hard-pressed to find a purer expression of rapture in a film this year than the one that opens Billy Elliot.
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88Best of all, Billy (Jamie Bell) is that rarity in a film distributed by Hollywood: a real boy, confused at 11 about almost everything.
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75As much parable and fantasy as it is realistic.
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75Trumpets the worthwhile message that ballet is just as manly and athletic as any other masculine activity - and maybe a touch more so, if you have to defy an uncomprehending community in order to pursue it.
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80An exhilarating, funny and deeply sad story of growing pains that works on two levels; it's a feel-good story that quietly undermines the notion of gain without loss.
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67Even as the director, Stephen Daldry, places his star front and center, he doesn't know how to highlight him.
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90Strikes a delicate balance of comedy and pathos with an uplifting final act that delivers a resoundingly satisfying emotional payoff.
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80A surprisingly wise and funny meditation on the nature of what it truly means to be a man.
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80By setting this intimate conflict against a wider social drama, Daldry makes his portrait of a dancer all the more compelling.
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80Can be as howlingly funny as it is touching.
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80Director Stephen Daldry gets it right.
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80You'll feel moved and uplifted after watching this well-written, funny movie.
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80Anchors its melodramatic formula in tough, heartfelt realism.
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80A delicate balance of fantasy and realism, caricature and character study that isn't driven primarily by its plot or even the development of its protagonist.
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70Good, colorful fun, and by virtue of its emphasis on escape through individual initiative rather than class solidarity, more likely to succeed with American audience.s
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60In its determination to overdo sure-fire material, Billy Elliot becomes as impossible to wholeheartedly embrace as it is to completely reject.
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60There's too much miserable reality and not a lot of transcendent dance, and the director, Stephen Daldry, doesn't cover the action from enough angles.
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60There's actually a lot going on in this little movie, and first-time feature director Stephen Daldry, turning his talents from the theater, handles all of it deftly.
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30It orders you to love it. It demands love, which is the best way not to get it.
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88A triumph that deserves a broad audience.
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88Bell is utterly persuasive as the boy literally yearning to leap beyond the oppressively apparent confines of his world.
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75Compared to manipulative tearjerkers like "Pay It Forward" or "Men of Honor," Billy Elliot is a model of restraint, one that earns its warmth the hard way -- by making us care about the people who are going through familiar steps.
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75An uplifting, crowd-pleasing film in the tradition of "The Full Monty" that could easily win Oscar nominations for both its 11-year-old star, Jamie Bell, and first-time director, Stephen Daldry.
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75One of those movies where it's impossible not to find yourself cheering for the scruffy underdog hero.
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75An adrenaline-pumping, post-musical musical.
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The performances of Bell, Walters and Lewis make this movie worth seeing - as long as you silence your cynical side and bring some Kleenex.
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80This is such seductive entertainment that you might as well stop grousing and give in.
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91An exquisite, ecstatic film, crude in its characterizations and plotting, yes, but extraordinary in its capacity for elation and its hard-earned sentimentality.
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90Bell explodes onscreen in a performance that cuts to the heart without sham tearjerking. Look for Billy to blast off.
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90This delightful film, with its surprising depth charges of emotion, has the feel of a movie that's going to lodge itself in the public's affections for a long time to come.
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50The better class of moviegoers will love Billy Elliot. And I loved hating it.
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70It's the triumph of the human spirit in its never-ending quest to be an original no matter what the establishment says.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 22
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Mixed: 3 out of 22
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Negative: 3 out of 22
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DavidH.4
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10