Movie Reviews by Evelyn Gough.
Billy Elliot (M)
Directed by Stephen Daldry

While there are many factors that go into producing a good movie, in a film such as Billy Elliot it’s the performance of its young leading actor that will either make or break the story. And thankfully in the newcomer Jamie Bell, who plays Billy, the producers have discovered a major talent.

Not only can this kid act, but he can also dance up a storm (not all that surprising, considering he’s been dancing since he was six years old). Which is just as well, since the whole plot revolves around an 11-year-old boy and his desire to learn ballet.

This wouldn’t be a problem in most environments, but Billy lives in a tough Northern England mining town where men are miners and dancers are ‘poofs’ (to use the quaint local dialect).

It’s the early 80s and many of the mines are being closed down. Billy’s dad Jacky (Gary Lewis from My Name Is Joe) and his older brother Tony (Jamie Draven) are out on strike and the community is like a war zone, with the police and the scab labour considered the enemy. (Margaret Thatcher isn’t too popular either).

As first time director Stephen Daldry explains: “In a sense the film is about grief, it’s grief on the level of the community. But it’s also the grief of a family because the mother has just died. It’s about a boy trying to find a way through that, trying to find a sense of identity that’s unique to him...”

Movies such as The Full Monty have explored similar themes and if you must have a comparison, I’d say that Billy Elliot was much more like the excellent but draining Brassed Off. This is a two-hour trip on an emotional roller coaster. At times harrowing, often moving and exhilarating, it’s no surprise that Billy Elliot has been a smash hit in Britain, winning four major awards there.

There is no way I could fault the acting, all the performances are excellent including Julie Waters, as Mrs Wilkinson, the ballet school teacher who recognises the potential in Billy, and the veteran actress Jean Heywood as Billy’s senile nan. As for Jamie Ball, he’s a natural.

I do get a trifle weary of the tired cliche: “no son of mine is going to be a dancer…” (substitute poet, actor or some other artsy-fartsy job, depending on the film).

Yes it does make a lot of sense to never leave the town you were born in, become an unemployed miner, or if you’re really lucky, get to work in the mines and die of lung disease. Way to go, dad!

Enthralling, but be warned, you may need to bring some tissues.

Book Reviews by Jeremy Fenton.
The Tide Turners
Colin Macpherson, Mopoke Publishing

The Tide Turners begins with a prologue from an individual only identified as ‘AJ’.

After buying a property in the East Anglia region of Britain, AJ writes that s/he discovered a mysterious hidden manuscript. Its author/s unknown, but its purpose clear: to alert history to the actions of a covert group of ‘eco-terrorists’ who have potentially profoundly changed the course of world affairs. The manuscript tells the story of an Australian man who comes to believe that the Earth’s problems have but one source – overpopulation by the human race. (That’s the problem with exponential growth, one generation the little blue-green sphere is half-full, the next, it’s overflowing!)

He is not alone in this belief as subsequent events reveal. With the help of his identical twin ‘female companions’, a couple of old friends, a rich benefactor and a stray dog named Ralph, Ewen MacKenzie sets forth on a daring and ambitious plan to reduce Earth’s human population by 80 per cent within a generation. The group gamble that this will give the planet breathing space for around 115 years, hopefully enough time to let the remaining human kind sorts themselves out.

Forming a company to look as if it is involved in commercial genetic research, they attract several scientists from Britain, the USA and India who are like-minded. The plan being to manipulate (or is that create) an influenza virus with the capability of rendering over 4 billion people infertile. But these are not people without a conscience (in fact they grapple with what must be some of the biggest moral questions around), so the group decide that the action must not harm anyone, or, at the very least, it must keep fatalities low.

Although aware that there will undoubtedly be ‘powers’ out to stop them at all costs, they press on towards the inevitable. To reveal much more would ruin what is a fiction of incredible environmental and scientific ideas. (Though it’s worth noting that at times the science and technology aspects might be a bit detailed for the unprepared. A small dictionary on the relevant subjects helped this reader enormously).

Once upon a time (not that long ago), The Tide Turners would have been squarely pigeon-holed as science fiction, or at best, science speculation, but I read in the weekend papers that the Australian birth rate is continuing to fall (the most recent figure being 1.7 children per couple), and apparently similar trends are being witnessed across large parts of the globe.

Could there really be such a plot afoot? Unlikely, but it still makes for fascinating and confronting reading – overall The Tide Turners is as entertaining as it is concerning.

• This is the first book from fledgling press Mopoke Publishing. Further details are available on the Internet at www.mopoke.com.au or by writing to PO Box 1213, Yeppoon QLD 4703.