| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
People who see it may feel like dancing out of the theater afterward. Go for it.
|
| 91 |
Portland Oregonian
An exquisite, ecstatic film, crude in its characterizations and plotting, yes, but extraordinary in its capacity for elation and its hard-earned sentimentality.
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Bell explodes onscreen in a performance that cuts to the heart without sham tearjerking. Look for Billy to blast off.
|
| 90 |
Newsweek
This 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.
|
| 90 |
Variety
Strikes a delicate balance of comedy and pathos with an uplifting final act that delivers a resoundingly satisfying emotional payoff.
|
| 88 |
New York Daily News
It's not just a movie about an underdog who fights the odds, it's about following one's heart -- despite the obstacles.
|
| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
Best of all, Billy (Jamie Bell) is that rarity in a film distributed by Hollywood: a real boy, confused at 11 about almost everything.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
You'd be hard-pressed to find a purer expression of rapture in a film this year than the one that opens Billy Elliot.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
A triumph that deserves a broad audience.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
Bell is utterly persuasive as the boy literally yearning to leap beyond the oppressively apparent confines of his world.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
Director Stephen Daldry gets it right.
|
| 80 |
Mr. Showbiz
This is such seductive entertainment that you might as well stop grousing and give in.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
A 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.
|
| 80 |
Village Voice
By setting this intimate conflict against a wider social drama, Daldry makes his portrait of a dancer all the more compelling.
|
| 80 |
Dallas Observer
Can be as howlingly funny as it is touching.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
An 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.
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
A surprisingly wise and funny meditation on the nature of what it truly means to be a man.
|
| 80 |
Film.com
You'll feel moved and uplifted after watching this well-written, funny movie.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Anchors its melodramatic formula in tough, heartfelt realism.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Examiner
An adrenaline-pumping, post-musical musical.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
One of those movies where it's impossible not to find yourself cheering for the scruffy underdog hero.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
As much parable and fantasy as it is realistic.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Trumpets 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.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
An 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.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Compared 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.
|
| 70 |
TNT RoughCut
It's the triumph of the human spirit in its never-ending quest to be an original no matter what the establishment says.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
Good, 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
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Even as the director, Stephen Daldry, places his star front and center, he doesn't know how to highlight him.
|
| 60 |
Slate
There'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.
|
| 60 |
Washington Post
There'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.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
In its determination to overdo sure-fire material, Billy Elliot becomes as impossible to wholeheartedly embrace as it is to completely reject.
|
| 50 |
Time
The better class of moviegoers will love Billy Elliot. And I loved hating it.
|
| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
The performances of Bell, Walters and Lewis make this movie worth seeing - as long as you silence your cynical side and bring some Kleenex.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
It orders you to love it. It demands love, which is the best way not to get it.
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