Engrossing ballet yarn
Yuli (M, 111 mins) Directed by Iciar Bollain Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★1⁄2
Some wag on the internet has already come up with the line I wish I’d thought of: Yuli is Billy Elliot in reverse.
Carlos Acosta grew up tough, the 11th child of a working-class family in 1970s and 80s Havana, Cuba. Though he was a prodigious talent on the sidewalks, breakdancing his way into local fame, the last thing Acosta wanted to do was dance ballet.
As Yuli – Iciar Bollain’s pretty good biopic of Acosta’s life – tells it, his dad would literally thrash him with a leather belt for wagging his classes.
But, Acosta’s natural talent was irrepressible and, soon enough, he began to revel in what his body could do and the voice it could give this scrappy but essentially shy child.
Bollain’s greatest weapon here is child actor Edlison Manuel Olbera Nunez, playing the young Acosta with what looks to me like a breakout role, handling the physical and the emotional heavylifting of the role like a veteran.
Dancer Keyvin Martinez picks up the role in Acosta’s teens and early career, and Acosta appears as himself in the present day-set scenes.
Acosta’s journey to superstardom – he went on to be feted as the greatest male dancer of his generation, with lead roles at The Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells and The Bolshoi and, next year, he will become artistic director of the Birmingham Ballet – makes for an engrossing yarn.
Yuli isn’t a particularly flashy or revolutionary film. But it is a morethan-competent retelling of a remarkable life’s trajectory.