Billy Liar

Offset the depressive dreariness of mid-century British life with the indecisiveness, procrastination and imagination of a young man in social no-mans-land and you'll get something quite sorrowful. It can also be damn funny! Marvellous little details of script/set-pieces and comic layers make it an entertaining film. Thoroughly enjoyable, and for some of us, it will feel uncomfortably personal and familiar!

A mockery of old fashioned middle class values and behaviors. Swerving back and forth between reality and fantasy, the satire is simultaneously charming and wicked. Even with this humorous quality, though, the film is a surprisingly poignant depiction of restless and indecisive youth. Tom Courtenay is wonderful as the title character, bursting with effervescence but not without flaws and vulnerability.

The movie is truly capable of creating a young character that is kinda lost in life, that feels like he has unattainable goals, locked in a life that he hasn't control of most things, finds refuge in fantasy but can't really escape that which binds him. Very inventive and entertaining; at the same time it's quite funny it's also very depressing. Good performance by the main actor.

It's hard to put my finger on what exactly bugged me about this movie. Was it the way all but Courtenay and Christie are presented as species to be mocked? Was it that Christie never came across as more than a fictional conceit? Or maybe it was just a plain vanilla reason like I just didn't find it funny or engaging, possibly due to the dated style of humor. (For some reason, there's this gap from about 1952-1967 where the comedy in movies differs from I what I find funny, with few exceptions.)

on the surface you expect a typically british 60's piece of social realism focused on the mundanity of working class life, but this carries more charm and wit - billy's escapism isn't through drinking or fights but his imagination. the julie christie romance probably needed more screentime to carry the weight it was trying to get but not a major quibble

This is what I would call... dumb. And silly.

Milk vending machines are what the world is missing

The fantasy segments I didn't enjoy, but there's some great ideas here. To be quite honest I enjoyed reading what people got out of it more than actually watching the film myself, but I predict that it might grow on me a bit on a rewatch.

Um Walter Mitty deprimente.

Uneven but still great. Includes one of the greatest ever scenes in movie history.

Slightly predictable moral, of course, but still very nicely done; starts out as comedy with a protagonist into escapist fantasies, ends up rather heartbreaking as we realise who the real escapists are.

An enjoyable, if somewhat humdrum comedy of manners and misunderstandings, given a boost by A) Courtenay's excellent performance and B) some nice dramatic underpinnings. It comes together very nicely in the end.

The charm of the fantasies did not last long. I could have used less of that and better character development.

Perhaps unfair a film that no doubt used the device before it became tired due to excessive overuse in third rate sitcoms - but I find imagined sequences irritating. Due to this the film took a while to grow on me, and I was checking my watch regularly until the final third, where the film really begins to develop and Billy's character matures and becomes more interesting.

When it started it seemed like it would just be a good absurd comedy about a kid who can't stop daydreaming, and it is that, but really grew on me as it went on. We get an increasingly deeper view of Billy as things progress and the ending is really very well done.

In the vein of the kitchen sink dramas of its time, but elevated from most of them thanks to the title character's flights of fantasy that make it a journey into the inner mind of a full time dreamer slob, one that is mirroring the life and dreams of most of us still waiting to be someone.

Score based on distant memory.

Classic

Kind of like "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" if Mitty was a young Malcolm McDowell type. Very watchable and also funny, in that reserved British way. I liked the ending.