I had just watched a documentary on coal the day before first seeing this, so I was already in quite a coalish mood. The story of a boy who finds that he prefers ballet to boxing, and has to work to be acknowledged by his peers and his father in a coal mining community. It ends as one would expect, but in getting there there is a nice amount of drama, and a little comedy that works out surprisingly well - I especially liked the dad's awkwardness as he didn't know what to do with himself in the waiting area of the ballet hall.
It feels realistically of the time, and all the sets are great (a lot of it was filmed on location in ex-mining towns and mines). The characters all felt realistic and were fleshed out just enough to be rooted for (apart from the granny, who is reduced to a catchphrase about her doing ballet).
I enjoyed watching it, but I'm not particularly enjoying writing about it. I've seen movies like this plenty of times before, and the story was an uninterestingly predictable, paint by the numbers affair. Nice and feel good overall though, give it a watch if you've nothing better to do, but maybe catch up on work or do some writing at the same time - you may as well.
Billy Elliot: 40.0