Stephen Daldry creates a film that hums with the electric energy of its protagonist's youthful passion. In the midst of the gritty lives of the characters in Billy Elliot, Daldry manages to simulate Billy's beloved "electricity" in the film's tone. Throughout the film, he includes montages of the young protagonist dancing with an abandon and joy that is nothing short of infectious.
At the time he directed the film, Daldry had never worked on a film before, and his only experience was with theater. After Daldry cut his teeth at the Royal Court in London, the production company Working Title put him at the helm of its studio's first ever independent film. The resulting film received critical acclaim and adoration from audiences, a surprise to Daldry, who is quoted in The Guardian as saying, "To be frank about it, it was—is—a small-budget British film that faced struggles in its making. But it was also a good working context, in that it became very special to the people working on it. It was a real surprise the way the Cannes audience responded to it; in Croatia they responded in the same way. I've just come back from three weeks touring it in the US, and it amazes me that what is essentially a small British film can have such a cross-cultural, cross-nationality reaction."
True to the subject matter of the film, much of Daldry's storytelling comes alive through his deft direction of his characters' physical lives. Many momentous and climactic moments are either dances or physical relationships between the characters, and Daldry's theater training no doubt gave him the detail-orientation and sensitivity to make meaningful and authentically-emotional moments come to life. Such moments include the montages of Billy dancing, the hug exchanged between Billy and his grandmother before he goes off to school, the desperate and conflicted hugs between Tony and Jackie as Jackie crosses the picket line, and Billy and Jackie falling off the bench in the graveyard after Billy has been accepted to ballet school. These little moments, so particular and specific, help to bring the story to life, and are what brought Daldry such acclaim for his debut film.
