How to Date Billy Walsh Review: Teen Romp Amuses Despite Flaws

The lush alpenglow of summer romance blazes ever so fleetingly for most – a truth that even seasoned cynics cannot deny. So too does the adolescent allure of the high school rom-com genre retain an eternal, if ephemeral, sparkle. With “How to Date Billy Walsh,” we’re beckoned back into those sun-dappled high school halls where heartache and hormones collide in antic fashion.

From the marketing maelstrom alone, one sensed this cheeky Prime Video offering would revel in all the genre’s revered tropes – dorky teens pining after unattainable beauties, misadventures in pursuit of young love, and the perpetual battle of friendship versus romantic yearnings. But could director Alex Pillai transcend mere pastiche to capture that elusive, fizzy feeling of first loves lost and found?

Cue my arched critical eyebrow – for as any cine-savant knows, the treacherous rom-com minefield is littered with well-intentioned but ultimately lifeless farces. Still, this grizzled reviewer remained open to the possibility that “Billy Walsh” could be that rare gem to rekindle the magic. Was youthful ardor to endure, or inevitably curdle into cringeworthy cliché?

Tale of Two Halves of a Teenage Heart

At the center of “How to Date Billy Walsh” swirls a classic romantic conflict – one torn asunder by the arrival of a dashing American transfer student. Archie and Amelia have been inseparable besties since birth, bound by an unspoken closeness that Archie yearns to evolve into something more. But just as he resolves to finally confess his long-smoldering feelings, a cosmic roadblock materializes.

Enter Billy Walsh, a motorcycle-riding vision of all-American heartthrobiness. Amelia immediately falls under his brooding spell, much to Archie’s crestfallen devastation. Desperate to undermine this interloping romantic rival, Archie concocts an increasingly zany series of ploys to sabotage Amelia’s puppy-love pursuit of the hunky newcomer.

His grand subterfuge? An AI aging filter allowing him to pose as an octogenarian “love doctor” and dole out terrible romantic advice to his naive best friend. What follows is a dizzying escalation of cringe-worthy schemes and compounded deceptions as Archie’s jealousy threatens to detonate his friendship with Amelia once and for all.

In this charming if conventional setup, we’re treated to an endearing cavalcade of teen angst, crass humor, and romantic foibles – a lighthearted if scattered reminder that the games of love remain eternally awkward at 17.

Trio of Charms Sells Familiar Premise

While the ingredients of “How to Date Billy Walsh” may be well-trodden territory, the charismatic triumvirate at its core imbues the stale premise with an infectious zest. Leading the charge is Sebastian Croft as the incurably awkward yet steadfastly loyal Archie. Having won adoring fans with his turn as the endearing Ben Hope in “Heartstopper,” Croft pirouettes to the opposite end of the comedic spectrum here.

As the perpetually flustered schemer desperately grasping at straws, Croft animates Archie’s litany of mortifying failures with a perpetual anxious energy and impeccable knack for physical comedy. Whether getting pelted with milkshakes or sobbing unconvincingly into a phone, Croft’s transparently unfiltered vulnerability sells the farce wholeheartedly.

His counterpart Amelia, inhabited by the radiant Charithra Chandran, could have easily descended into the tired “oblivious object of affection” trope. But Chandran wisely unlocks sincere pathos in her lovelorn dreamer, conveying an achingly universal yearning to be seen and desired. Her bond with Croft manifests a easy, lived-in rapport that grounds their friendship’s fraying amid the escalating lunacy.

As for Tanner Buchanan’s eponymous Billy, he smartly embraces the cipher-like qualities of his archetypal “unattainable crush” role. Buchanan lets his smoldering charisma and Californian surfer-dude physicality do the heavy lifting. While a largely blank slate, his understated performance generously allows space for Croft and Chandran’s dynamism to shine.

The resultant odd-couple trinity crackles with an off-kilter but genuine chemistry. Despite their contrasting frequencies, these young talents harmonize to elevate hoary high school comedy premises into something effervescent and strangely endearing.

Scrappy Charms Amid Budgetary Constraints

While certainly no grand cinematic endeavor, “How to Date Billy Walsh” showcases an admirable scrapiness in its direction and overall production values. Veteran TV director Alex Pillai clearly had to stretch every penny of this modestly-budgeted teen romp, but demonstrates an impressive facility for doing more with less.

On the direction front, Pillai’s background in youth-skewing dramedies like “Riverdale” is evident in his breezy, frenetic pacing and promiscuous tonal shifts. The movie pinballs between slapstick farce, bittersweet introspection and broad caricature with reckless abandon. While occasionally whiplash-inducing, there’s an ersatz energy to the herky-jerky rhythm that endearingly captures the hormonal push-pull of adolescence.

Visually, the budget limitations are nakedly apparent – the cinematography, production design and visual effects feel chintzy, repurposing the same high school corridor ad nauseam. But Pillai has fun goosing the laughs by meta-acknowledgment, like overlaying laugh/cringe emojis and comment bubbles direct from a TikTok feed.

The overall zany, rough-hewn spirit is of a hyperactive kid let loose with an iPhone and iMovie – scrappy but imaginative in its homespun lo-fi irreverence. There are groaner gags and gaffe-laden sequences aplenty, but also flashes of shoestring ingenuity compensating for the shoestring budget.

Above all, it’s a modest but admirable effort to fashion maximal entertainment value from minimal resources. Pillai delivers a big, gaudy comedic bauble with all the loose change in his pockets.

Timeless Truths in a TikTok’d Coming-of-Age Tale

Beneath its bubblegum surface frivolity, “How to Date Billy Walsh” gently probes certain timeless truths about love, friendship and that universal gauntlet we call adolescence. For all its zany contrivances and meta-humor razzmatazz, the film evinces an unmistakable sweetness in its portrayal of the intense bonds of youth.

At its core, this is an archetype-embracing tale about the supreme sacrifice of putting a friend’s happiness before your own desires. Archie’s escalating clown show of deceptions is rooted in that eternal teenage fear of emotional castration – having your heart not just broken, but pulverized into a fine gem powder by romantic rejection. His cringy ploys to torpedo Amelia’s crush are the desperate acts of someone who’d rather burn it all down than lose his soulmate.

But the film’s greatest insights may be in how it contrasts this timeless conflict against the utterly modern haute-bourgeois trappings of its BlueTooth’d, TikTok’d, DM’d high school milieu. Teenage ecstasies and anguishes may be universal constants, but the shimmering veneer of 21st century adolescence is rendered in flashing neon. From the omniprevalence of social media to the pernicious impacts of nascent AI tech, the perils of modern youth are vividly realized.

When Archie’s prank turns to catfishing Amelia with an AI-augmented geriatric persona, we slide into slightly murkier moral territory. The creeping tendrils of technology into every facet of modern life raise fascinating questions about evolving boundaries and the ethics of virtual identities and personas.

These threads examining teen sociology and rising technological forces slightly undercut the coming-of-age shenanigans. But they ultimately reinforce the film’s acutely personal stakes – at a certain point, the whizbang gimmickry must fall away, leaving only the bare truth of whether these bonds of friendship and first love can withstand the painful tests of maturity.

A Sweetly Conventional Bouquet of Rom-Com Posies

For all its self-aware winks and occasional sly subversions, “How to Date Billy Walsh” is ultimately a wholehearted rom-com bouquet teeming with tried-and-true genre flourishes. Director Alex Pillai seems to revel in these familiar tropes and well-trodden archetypes – the initial resistance being mostly half-hearted playfulness.

We’ve the endearingly flustered leading lad pining for his childhood bestie, now the unknowing apple of the new school hottie’s eye. The cataclysmic fallout that ensues when said oblivious dream girl gets swept off her feet by said smokin’ transfer beau. And of course, the descent into farcical machinations to sabotage this burgeoning infatuation at all costs.

Pillai duly delivers all the comforting beats we’ve seen riffed ad nauseam – the glamorized high school cliques, drool-worthy object of affection arrival, slo-mo comedic humiliations galore. Even the film’s modern narrative delivery system of a fourth-wall breaking narrator guide faithfully emulates the meta-textual streak in recent teen comedy hits.

But rather than poke fun or skewer these conventions, “Billy Walsh” actually leans warmly into their reassuring familiarity. The humor mines less snark than genuine affection for these cherished setups and character archetypes that have soundtracked so many coming-of-age comedies before it.

If anything, the few deviations – like the creepy AI catfishing subplot – feel like momentary detours from the film’s cozy embrace of the genre’s reliable rhythms. A delightful if fleeting hint at untapped subversive potential, before being reabsorbed into the sweetly conventional courtship shenanigans.

Effervescent Ephemera From a Teenage Wasteland

In the end, “How to Date Billy Walsh” is a featherlight cinematic bonbon – a sugary little trifle that sparkles effervescently before inevitably dissipating from memory. Its strengths are also, in many ways, its greatest weaknesses.

On the pro side, the film never loses sight of its breezy, unassuming goals as a palate-cleanser rom-com romp. Director Alex Pillai and his vibrant young ensemble fully commit to the premise’s heightened teenage inanity, riding out the farcical twists and turns with infectious abandon. There’s an earnest zest that counterbalances the sheer silliness, allowing the central friendship dynamics to resonate as something vaguely profound about the intense bonds of youth.

The flaws, however, are equally apparent. The tonal tightrope grows wearying, with the narrative pinging erratically between broad comedy setpieces and pathos-mining teen profundities. The fourth-wall asides and TikTok’d visual gimmickry can feel like desperate bids for Gen Z cred. And for all its pining over true love, the central romance never quite convinces as a smoldering emotional catalyst.

Ultimately though, “Billy Walsh” succeeds as the cinematic equivalent of a greatest hits album for teen movie tropes – an unapologetic lark that tosses every rom-com Hail Mary at the wall to see which stick. It’s disposable, sure, but also an undemanding delight for when you’re simply craving a frivolous dose of young love’s eternal headiness before the hangover of adulting ineluctably descends.

In that sense, Pillai’s farce captures the very ephemeral magic it strives to embody – that delirious first flush of infatuation flaring brilliantly if briefly before the cold realities of maturity inevitably extinguish the flame. An ode to those giddy pangs of adolescent ardor that flicker incandescently one last time before burning out forever.

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