A Classic British Comedy
John Schlesinger's much-loved British comedy from 1963 is based on the 1959 novel by Keith Waterhouse, part of the Angry Young Man movement alongside John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, though only Osborne's hero is truly angry.
Tom Courtenay plays Billy, a cheeky young man who lives in his own Walter Mitty-ish fantasy world. He works as an undertaker's clerk in Yorkshire and escapes into reveries where he rules a bizarre Ruritanian land called Ambrosia. Billy wants to be a comedy writer, and he creates preposterous situations inside his head.
Complicated Love Life
Billy has recklessly proposed to two women: shy Barbara (Helen Fraser) and Rita (Gwendolyn Watts). But a third woman, the beautiful Liz (Julie Christie), encourages him to try his luck in London. Billy loses his nerve, and this act of nerve-loss has soured the reviewer on the film despite its reputation.
The reviewer finds the film's ending unfunny and loyal to unhappiness, at odds with Billy's comic fantasies and with the real-life experiences of Waterhouse and Courtenay. However, he concedes that the ending might relate to Billy's actual lying to the other women. Still, Courtenay's performance is beautiful, and he remains an enduringly amazing actor.
Billy Liar is in UK cinemas from 31 July.
