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.

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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.