The problem with How to Date Billy Walsh is not that it puts the pussy on a pedestal. It does put the pussy on a pedestal, and it is a problem, but what truly dooms the movie from the beginning is that it overtells an overtold tale.
The title pretty much gives the whole thing away. What we’ve got here is the British response to Win a Date with Tad Hamilton; now, if only it were a one-word answer.
The first half of the film has two speeds; first it falters and then it crumbles under the crushing weight of unremitting, disruptive exposition. How can a story, even one as generic and predictable as this one, be expected to gain any sort of momentum when the protagonist keeps interrupting it to address the viewers?
Off the top of my head, I can think of one person who can get away with breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis, and that’s Ferris Bueller; alas, Archibald Arnold (Sebastian Croft) is no Ferris Bueller; indeed, he’s nothing but a shoo-in for Upper-Class Twit of the Year.
You know your hero talks too much when narration (already flaccid, sloppy writing) turns into running commentary and bleeds into the dialogue — and what the hell for? We’re not dealing with Luis Buñuel or David Lynch here; you don’t have to talk us through the formulaic plot.
We can see (and foresee) what’s going on onscreen; we’re not blind or deaf — nor is, for that matter, Amelia Brown (Charithra Chandran may be ten years too old to play a high school senior, but she’s not so old that her senses would fail her at the drop of a hat).
The entire movie is predicated on Archie’s inability to tell fellow classmate and lifelong best friend Amelia that he has romantic feelings for her — but how could she possibly not know that? It’s all he speaks about. Out loud. Right next to her.
I’m aware that the aside is a common device in theater, and it’s understood that the character’s speech is unheard by the other characters on stage; that said, a film is not as immediate a viewing experience as a live stage play where you want to keep the audience constantly up to speed in case they missed something.
In a movie, there are visual techniques that allow you to linger on important details, so that when Archie thinks Amelia is about to requite his (as yet) unspoken love, only to have her confide in him that she’s fallen for Billy Walsh (Tanner Buchannan) instead, you can come up with a better, more subtle way to express his anticipation-turned-disappointment than having the character do a play-by-play of the action (such as it is). I just want to be able to pinpoint the second when Archie’s heart rips in half; surely a little emoting isn’t too much to ask of Croft?
By the same token, you can unveil Archie’s infatuation with Amelia without being the wiser. For example, start with a close-up of Archie ostensibly baring his soul to Amelia, and then slowly pull back to reveal that he’s rehearsing in front of a mirror or some such bullshit. Clichéd? Hells yeah, but also more natural and less obvious than what we do get.
The second half lets up somewhat on the verbosity and the shameless mugging to the camera, but that’s just strike one anyway. Strike two: the film opens in media res and segues into How We Got Here, with Archie explaining that “to really understand how I’ve ended up on this stage … I need to take you back to … April 17th.” Here’s a thought: why not make April 17th the starting point and be done with it?
Strike three: on the first day of school, Archie and Amelia walk around campus like they own the goddamn place, kicking ass (or, rather, balls) and taking names; unsurprisingly, this is Archie’s Indulgent Fantasy Segue. “Yeah, that wasn’t us,” he says. No shit.
Strike four: between the protagonists being old-school horror fans and resident mean girl Amber (Daisy Jelley) doing the “Love You” written across the eyelids thing from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the filmmakers repeatedly broke the unwritten rule of never reminding the audience that we could be watching a much better movie.
Strike five: the dreaded Pop-Up Texting. Oddly, on at least one occasion text messages are shown on a cellphone screen where they belong and are perfectly legible; it’s a shot that contributes to the feeling, that all films should evoke, of spying on the characters — looking over their shoulders, undetected like Wim Wenders’s angels. How could director Alex Pillai not see which alternative is more natural? Then again, the shot I’m talking about must have been a fluke, given how deliberate in its disregard for suspension of disbelief the script otherwise is.
Strike six: Archie and Amelia attend one of those movie schools where all activities are extracurricular. Strike seven: a peripheral, flamboyantly gay character appears for no other reason than the filmmakers were under the erroneous impression that flamboyantly gay characters are intrinsically funny.
The main storyline is as transparent and uninventive as the gimmicks listed above, culminating in a public declaration of love (but then, aren’t all declarations of love in cookie-cutter romcoms public?) wherein Archie declares, “I’m a binary star. A star system consisting of two stars orbiting a common centre. The B star, me, it shines less bright, but its counterpart, the primary star [Amelia], it burns much brighter” and so on and so forth.
It’s hard to picture this pathetic display of low self-esteem winning over anyone who isn’t just as deeply insecure, but I guess that’s why they say that there’s a lid for every pot.
All things considered, to whom are supposed to hitch our wagon? The whiny little motormouth twerp with no sense of self-worth, or the flaky, flatulent (“fear farts” she calls them) little bitch who settles for the whiny little twerp? Me, I say fuck ‘em both.
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