The casting is good. Sebastian Croft and Charithra Chandran deliver strong performances given the material they had to work with. The issue isn't with its casting, but the writing and middling-level ambience. It's very evident that this film is trying entirely too hard to land. It's a 100 minute Steve Buscemi with a skateboard meme: "hello fellow kids". It's screaming Disney y2k era teen movie level of depth with a touch of Glee mean kid slapstick. The jokes just don't land and conflict is cartoonish. It's so... banal. It feels like not a single person who had creative decision-making power has ever met, a 2024 teen, let alone gotten to know them on any fundamental level. If this is what teens of today have for viewing, no wonder viewership is down. Do better.
Review of How to Date Billy Walsh
