“If you think too loudly, you’ll never hear the answer you’re looking for.”
One of Amazon Prime’s newest rom-coms, How To Date Billy Walsh, carries this message throughout the film with a goofy, youthful, and angsty atmosphere that makes it a perfect weekend watch.
The plot of the movie surrounds Archie Arnold (Sebastian Croft), a nerdy rich boy who is love-struck by his childhood best friend, Amelia Brown (Charithra Chandran). After his lifetime struggle to confess his love to Amelia, Archie is finally ready to tell her that he loves her—and he wants it to be perfect.
And it is about to be—until transfer student Billy Walsh (Tanner Buchanan) shows up, and Amelia is head over heels.
As the movie progresses, Archie combats Amelia’s crush on Billy in a multitude of ways while simultaneously being there for her when things go awry. Despite Archie’s continuous work to show his care for Amelia, she begins to drift away—deterred by his determination to be anti-Billy.
Now, to break down the film: I would give it four out of five stars. Unfortunately, its playtime of one hour and thirty minutes limited opportunities for character development, which showed, especially towards the end. I was only able to learn about the three main characters—Archie, Amelia, and Billy—yet, it still felt like I barely knew them at all.
The main characters, despite having all of the focus, seemed to be quite static. Though the plot made it appear like Archie and Amelia should show growth, neither really did. While I appreciate the aspect of them staying the same, the timeline is spread out, and it doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t have changed at all considering the events of the film.
The one character that did show noticeable change was a side character, Amber McKenna (Daisy Jelley), whose personality softens as the movie progresses. While I appreciate that she was able to grow, why didn’t the main characters?
How To Date Billy Walsh is also very dramatic and a little fake. Some scenes are not realistic at all, which makes them hard to watch. For these reasons, it only gets four stars from me.
All of these poorly executed elements don’t mean the movie was a total failure. As I said before, it’s a great, easygoing rom-com to watch on the weekend. It’s packed with comedy, pop culture references, and perfectly executed teenage angst. Setting the lack of character development and over-the-top scenes aside, the movie is very enjoyable to take in.
I would also like to recognize well-done elements of the film that didn’t necessarily stem from the dialogue. The costumes are very colorful and unique, especially for characters like Lilly Arnold (Lucy Punch) and Yousif (Nael Ameen), and the settings range from gorgeous, green fields to massive, beautiful buildings. These make the movie lively and zestful.
Overall, How To Date Billy Walsh is the perfect movie for a relaxing family night. While it definitely isn’t perfect, it’s easy to follow, fun, and brings a level of relatability and representation to teenage audiences. If you’re a rom-com lover like me, I would recommend putting it on your watch list.
