Duck: Friends, this movie was fascinating for us because it was pondweed-packed with super-ducking awesome performances and was often a DUCK of a lot of fun, but it failed us in one HUGE respect.
Star: It got too cruel. In fact, it got so cruel that we had to fast forward a bit.
Duck: True! But why, Star? Why did it get so cruel? Why, halfway through How To Date Billy Walsh, were my flippers all sad and spongy because two nice characters were being ducking badly treated?
Star: Without giving any pond-suck spoilers, I’d say this: If a character’s going TOO FAR because he can’t tell his best friend he’s been in love with her for years, we need to understand WHY.
Duck: Wait one ducking minute. You’re right! I’ve no idea why Archie (Sebastian Croft) can’t tell Amelia (Charithra Chandran) he’s in love with her? Amelia’s nice, thoughtful, fun, honest, and super-ducking trustworthy. So why couldn’t he bring himself to quack the truth?
Star: I mean, to an extent we can guess, I suppose? Insecurities? That’s more obvious. But what insecurities, exactly? After all, at school, Archie tells Amelia that neither of them are part of the cool set, so he clearly doesn’t believe she’s “out of his league.” It’s also true that Archie’s parents haven’t been happy together. But we don’t know much about that, or how it’s affected Archie, because it’s kept at the comedy level. All we really know is that when Amelia falls for Billy Walsh, Archie would rather wrestle frogspawn than let Amelia date Billy. And that’s the only reason I have for why he’s so CRUEL and scheming in order to get his own way.
Duck: If we knew the true depths of his fears, it might be a bit ducking better. If Archie was a swan with a mildly-grating honk who kept accidentally shocking everyone, then of course I’d understand if he said something cruel because he was too triggered to digest his pondweed fritters. But we have ZERO INFO on why Archie isn’t brave enough to tell Amelia he loves her, yet he seems to have ENDLESS BRAVERY when it comes to doing something mean and selfish that hurts good people.
Star: Motivation is important. It earns our empathy. It says to our heart, “Remember, life can be hard. There are reasons for our mistakes.”
Motivation is important. It earns our empathy. It says to our heart, “Remember, life can be hard. There are reasons for our mistakes.”
Duck: And where it’s hard to forgive cruelty, it’s easy to understand pain.
Star: That gets a high flipper from me! Especially since there was lots to love when it came to the comedy, and I loved characters like Billy and Amelia. Charithra Chandran was legendary as Amelia—she has emotional depth and range, but can also be funny as DUCK.
Duck: Sebastian Croft did a good job as Archie, but the screenplay limited him, IMDO. The result? He was stuffed to the beak-holes with comedy, but otherwise, he *had* to be a bit of a one-note quacker.
Star: Some nice racial diversity did tickle our flippers, and the story paddled along at a good pace. Some of the comedy moments were excellent! A duck of a lot to love, if you can look past Archie’s lack of depth.
Duck: HUGE flippers up for Nael Ameen as Yousif! True comedy and heart, and so nice to have such a vibrant LGBTQIA+ character, who really lit up the screen with his energy and was allowed to be really funny. More queer, plus-size, disabled and/or neurodiverse characters would have been nice. There was a huge ducking opportunity for this, given the school setting.
Star: This movie didn’t bore us, but it did disappoint us, so we’re giving it two flippers up, in spite of the stellar performances.
Duck: But four diversity ducks! Duck, yes!
And thanks for reading, friends!
At the time of writing, you can watch How To Date Billy Walsh here:
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