Billy Elliot

Question: Toward the very end of the movie, when Tony and Jackie are going to see Billy dancing, it seems almost as if Jackie is reluctant to go on, and is seen walking slowly and looking all around. What is the significance of this?

Answer: Some time has passed since Billy left home and became a professional dancer. Jackie is older now and not as physically active as he once was. He has also seldom left his small, provincial town, and being in a major city like London is a little daunting for him, so he is a little uncomfortable and out-of-place.

raywest ★

I'd agree with "overwhelmed" (or in awe), but not to the point of being "daunting" because he was eager and excited to see what Billy had become and was not trying to avoid going there. (It was more like he was trying to not let on how excited he actually was).

KeyZOid

There's nothing to suggest that he was excited or eager, let alone that he was trying to hide it. It's more likely he was simply overwhelmed.

Question: What is the music on which Billy dances when he is auditioning at the end of the film? It doesn't figure on the soundtrack.

Answer: It's called 'I Will Dance' by Stephen Warbeck.

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Mistakes

Factual error: In the scene where Billy's brother argues with a miner in the local shop, there is a plastic Polo dispenser that wasn't around in 1984.

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Quotes

Billy: So, what's it like, like?
Dad: What's what like?
Billy: London.
Dad: I don't know, son. I never made it past Durham.
Billy: Have you never been?
Dad: Why would I want to go to London?
Billy: It's the capital city.
Dad: Well, there are no mines in London.
Billy: Jesus Christ, is that all you think about?

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Trivia

Trivia: At one stage in the movie, Billy and his dance teacher travel across the Transporter Bridge, the only working cradle bridge in the world, which crosses the River Tees from Middlesbrough to Port Clarence, Stockton-on-Tees. At the time of the Miners Strike in 1984, when the film is set, neither Middlesbrough nor Stockton-on-Tees had an active coal field. Whilst the Transporter Bridge, now a grade 2 listed structure, is still working, it is not really a regularly used entry or exit use from Teesside, if Billy and his teacher were going to an audition. Which raises the question as to why they were on the bridge, apart from giving the director the chance to show off a spectacular structure.

Jeff Walker

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