How To Date Billy Walsh followers teenagers Amelia & Archie who have been best friends since childhood. Archie has always been there to fight Amelia’s battles, laugh at her jokes, though has secretly been striving for her love & affection for as long as he can remember. Just when he builds up the courage to declare his feelings, Amelia falls head over heels for Billy Walsh, the new American transfer student. Heartbroken Archie goes to great lengths to try & keep Amelia & Billy away from each other, but ends up pushing them closer together & risks losing her entirely.
I do admire the odd Romcom here & there but I wasn’t entirely sure where to set my expectations for How To Date Billy Walsh, but the film ultimately left me blown away by how much fun & a pleasure to watch it is.
The cast are terrific in their respective roles. Co-Lead, Charityra Chandran (Bridgerton) does a great job portraying the chaos & sparadic emotions of a love struck teenager & Sebastian Croft, delivering a stellar polar opposite performance to that of his most recent as Ben Hope in Netflix’s Heartstopper, truly radiates with electric energy in How To Date Billy Walsh.
Together they make for an excellent pair of lovable, whimsical & wild leads, appropriate for this kind of Friday Night movie! – While Tanner Buchanan (Cobra Kai) subverts the typical ‘tall, muscular, motorbike riding jock’ as Billy Walsh in great fashion yet simple execution.
The movie packs heart. & a bunch of it. Largely in part due to the writing & direction of the characters who once again, are genuinely lovable. & The story, while certainly nothing particularly new & even predictable, still sits nicely tying the overall film & it’s individual pieces together.
Billy Walsh has the love & it certainly has the humour. Taking on a whimsical, slapstick & totally self aware silliness approach to it all & a great deal of it lands far more than not, even when it’s overly cheesy, it’s intentional & well serviced! Atop that the consistent fourth wall breaking, which we’ve seen moments off in the marketing, was fabulous & the execution couldn’t have been better.
Overall, How To Date Billy Walsh understands what it is & doesn’t shy away from it. It in fact uses it to elevate the entertainment & intention of the movie itself. Delivering a lovable, slapstick & hilariously heartfelt Teen/Romcom that’s short but sweet & the perfect movie for a night in with friends.
How To Date Billy Walsh releases on Prime Video on April 5.
