How to Date Billy Walsh Review – Tosh in Pretty Wrapping
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“How to Date Billy Walsh” has so many things going in its favor – it’s got a fantastic cast, visually engaging cinematography, groovy background tracks that make everything seem more fun – and yet, the plot is as cliched, outdated and predictable as it can be. “If this is going to end in the way all these teen movies end, I am not going to give this more than a 3 on 5 stars, let’s see!” I thought to myself after the first half-hour of the film, which was really entertaining and made me push my hopes up for a unconventional ending. But nope, those hopes were destroyed. It’s a Gen Z looking movie, but despite the use of technology and viral memes, it ultimately fits a very Gen X format and sentiment.
Directed by Alex Pillai, who’s worked on hit titles like “Bridgerton”, “Pretty Little Liars”, and “Riverdale” (among others), “How to Date Billy Walsh” is a high school romantic comedy written by Alexander J. Farrell and Greer Ellison. The story follows BFFs Archibald Arnold (Sebastian Croft) and Amelia Brown (Charithra Chandran), who’ve been friends since they were toddlers, and just when Archie finally picks up the courage to confess his love to Amelia, she falls head over heels in lust with the new hottie on campus – Billy Walsh (Tanner Buchanan). Archie reluctantly agrees to help Amelia win over her crush, but things don’t turn out quite as he intends.
Sebastian Croft, who played young Ned Stark in “Game of Thrones” and Ben in “Heartstopper”, narrates “How to Date Billy Walsh” from Archie’s point-of-view. Charithra Chandran is endearingly charming as his best-friend Amelia, she is awkward, cute and hilariously captures the butterflies teenagers get when they spot their crush on campus. It’s idiotic how clueless Amelia is about Archie’s feelings, but in a small, surprising twist – she does directly ask him if he loves her, and Archie unfortunately lets the opportunity slide by. Tanner Buchanan is introduced as the stock “bad boy on a motorbike” in his first scene as Billy Walsh, but as the plot progresses, viewers learn how he isn’t your typical ego-centrist jock who goes for the prettiest cheerleader.
Kunal Nayyar plays Amelia’s eccentric widower dad Rupert Brown, while Tim Downie and Lucy Punch play Archie’s parents George and Lilly Arnold. The parents merely serve as comic relief, and the Arnolds help push a primary subplot in the tale – they claim a secret ingredient helped save their marriage, and Amelia asks Archie to help find out their secret so she can use it to win over Billy Walsh.
There’s the the usual bullying, some mild comedy, a generic twist about one friend betraying the other, and finally a grand apology that fixes everything like magic. Only 1 hour 38 minutes long, “How to Date Billy Walsh” is thoroughly enjoyable in the first hour, but gets almost un-watchable in the last thirty minutes. The writers had two perfect opportunities to wrap up this story with an atypical climax, but instead they drag their characters through some unnecessary mess and give viewers a disappointing ending.
Rating: 4 on 10. You can watch “How to Date Billy Walsh” on Prime Video.
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