Do Americans Like This?

Your friend must be young. Ever watch 'Coal Miners Daughter' or 'October Sky" (or is it 'Skies' ?). T Rex was huge back in the day. 'Jeepster' was played on all radio stations - I ran out and bought the album along with everyone I knew.
Coal miners strikes are certainly nothing new in the US of A. In fact, the American Labor movement was born in the mining towns.The only thing I found difficult about this movie was the 'accents'. Nothing new there either as we have regional accents here that I have difficulties understanding. So, theres nothing about this movie that an American wouldn't understand, beginning to end.
I would imagine that their are Brits who were born many years after the Thatcher administration who, due to age, would have the same difficulties you're wondering about. 'Ancient' history here. Oh, 'The Clash' - 'London Calling' ? Same deal. Seen them twice and my room mate and some of his other friends were in the studio when 'Should I Stay or Should I Go ?" was recorded. Then theres Gene kelly, Fred Astaire, The Beatles, The Stones, James Bond movies etc., etc. That big body of water between us,some differences in the terms we/you use and some differences in accents do not make us worlds apart. Most of us 'get it'.
Theres three thousand plus miles of land between where I live and the city L.A.
Water/land, its all good !

Kind of a strange thread. LOL I think this story is very sweet. I find the passion for dancing, to be quite lovely. I feel beyond awful for all the trouble his family had to go through.

I still find the end to be rather a fairy tale.

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This is one of my favorite movies. Absolutely loved it, and I'm from the States.
Admittedly, I did a little research on the miner's strike and some of the artists in the soundtrack in order to understand the plot better. I managed to connect this to "Son of Rambow", where it also has a small reference to the miner's strike and "scabs".

This movie is huge in the states.

All my friends watched it and loved it and watch it randomly now that it's streaming on Netflix!

Why wouldn't Americans like it? The themes are universal - no matter what country you are from.

Hey, you dang woodchucks! Stop chucking my wood!

I remember in high school sneaking into the little indie theater down the street from my best friend's house to see this 3 or 4 times with her. She was a ballet dancer and I was an anglophile (I was always watching British comedy like Monty Python, Mr Bean, Benny Hill and AbFab) and fan of 60s, 70s and 80s hard rock and glam rock so it was like a melding of our interests. We weren't familiar with that particular strike but have learned about many strikes so knew the serious implications. I had heard of T Rex. I was familiar with enough British slang to understand what they meant. The main story about Billy following his dreams is something that anyone of any nationality and born in any generation can relate to. We ended up loving this movie so much, my friend bought it for me on VHS for either my birthday or Christmas one year. I haven't watched it in years, so I put it on tonight for a whim, and it's still brilliant.

Also, in the scene where Michael and Billy are making a snowman they're singing Jingle Bells, which was written in America about sleigh races (in my hometown of Medford, MA for the record) but you don't have to know anything about Medford in the 1800s or sleighs to appreciate and sing it halfway around the world. Random analogy I know but like I said, I'm watching the movie now and caught that particular scene as I was reading this thread. But a less oddly specific example would be how popular anime is around the world even with people who don't know a lot about Japanese culture or history. And usually, that interest in one piece of pop culture opens the doors to learning more. So I bet a lot of Americans who weren't knowledgeable about the strife of the British unions and working class in the 80s or the music of T Rex found out more thanks to this movie. So yay.

While I can admit that there's something of a bigger picture if you truly understand the era and location in which it takes place and get a feel for the music on the soundtrack rather than it being random background music, no one will ever miss the core meaning of this movie as it's a universal message.

American here, love this movie. I also remember the time period it was set in. I was already an adult in the 80s.






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I'm an American who's watched the film for the first time today. I'm becoming obsessed! It was such a treat!

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