In a world, Billy Fisher is a war hero, beloved despot, acclaimed novelist, writer of the reform-producing prison memoir "I Have Paid," and grandson of the woman who invented radium and penicillin (presumably not simultaneously).
Unfortunately for Billy, this world exists only in his imagination. The rest of the time, he fights a losing battle with grim reality in the Yorkshire city where he lives, toiling as a mortician's clerk while dreaming of making a name for himself in London and lying whenever he feels threatened by reality, which is often.
Tom Courtenay plays Billy as a mixture of dreamer and low-grade sociopath, drawing both our sympathy and scorn. Taken from an even bleaker comic novel by co-screenwriter Keith Waterhouse, "Billy Liar" is an enigma of a movie, directed by a man, John Schlesinger, who liked to make enigmatic films. Surrealistic yet gritty, "Billy Liar" throws a lot of comedic curves at the viewer, yet leaves you with heavier feelings.
"I turn over a new leaf every day, but the blots show through," is how Billy explains it to the one person who seems to understand, the radiant gadabout Liz (Julie Christie). Liz tells Billy he doesn't need to be stuck in his northern town; he can go to London like she does any time he wants. But of course it's not that simple, especially if you are a cheat and a coward at heart.
The fantasy sequences are low-key but effective. We see Billy leading a parade where he also appears as various soldiers. A newspaper advertisement features an article about Billy with the headline: "Genius Or Madman?" When he's with one of the two young women he is presently engaged to, he imagines her slinking over to his bed in a negligee until his reverie is cut short when she catches his hand on her thigh.
Schlesinger works the comedy more than the novel did, a good thing as "Billy Liar" needs a light touch. It is a rare film that marries the kitchen-sink drama of British films being made at the time with more farcical elements, but the drama is ever-present and gets more thick as the movie goes on. Even the humor has an unpleasant edge: One of the biggest laughs comes when we see Billy cut down his boss (Leonard Rossiter) with a tommy gun.
Billy bickers constantly with his sullen father, while dismissing his mother rather heartlessly. "I'm not ordinary folk, even if she is," he says, after shaking off her attempt to talk some sense into him. Billy's just not that likable, even apart from his serial lying. The trick of the film is the way it gets you to pull for him anyway. We see how up against it he is, in the way Courtenay shrugs and smiles and drifts back into fantasy, losing precious time all the while.
"Billy Liar" could have been more fun and less dour, but that would have cut against its message of antic despair. You know what Billy should do with his life, and you know he knows it, too, but like Liz you see also how a dreamer's life can get in the way with reality, and understand why the future belongs to her, not him.
Unfortunately for Billy, this world exists only in his imagination. The rest of the time, he fights a losing battle with grim reality in the Yorkshire city where he lives, toiling as a mortician's clerk while dreaming of making a name for himself in London and lying whenever he feels threatened by reality, which is often.
Tom Courtenay plays Billy as a mixture of dreamer and low-grade sociopath, drawing both our sympathy and scorn. Taken from an even bleaker comic novel by co-screenwriter Keith Waterhouse, "Billy Liar" is an enigma of a movie, directed by a man, John Schlesinger, who liked to make enigmatic films. Surrealistic yet gritty, "Billy Liar" throws a lot of comedic curves at the viewer, yet leaves you with heavier feelings.
"I turn over a new leaf every day, but the blots show through," is how Billy explains it to the one person who seems to understand, the radiant gadabout Liz (Julie Christie). Liz tells Billy he doesn't need to be stuck in his northern town; he can go to London like she does any time he wants. But of course it's not that simple, especially if you are a cheat and a coward at heart.
The fantasy sequences are low-key but effective. We see Billy leading a parade where he also appears as various soldiers. A newspaper advertisement features an article about Billy with the headline: "Genius Or Madman?" When he's with one of the two young women he is presently engaged to, he imagines her slinking over to his bed in a negligee until his reverie is cut short when she catches his hand on her thigh.
Schlesinger works the comedy more than the novel did, a good thing as "Billy Liar" needs a light touch. It is a rare film that marries the kitchen-sink drama of British films being made at the time with more farcical elements, but the drama is ever-present and gets more thick as the movie goes on. Even the humor has an unpleasant edge: One of the biggest laughs comes when we see Billy cut down his boss (Leonard Rossiter) with a tommy gun.
Billy bickers constantly with his sullen father, while dismissing his mother rather heartlessly. "I'm not ordinary folk, even if she is," he says, after shaking off her attempt to talk some sense into him. Billy's just not that likable, even apart from his serial lying. The trick of the film is the way it gets you to pull for him anyway. We see how up against it he is, in the way Courtenay shrugs and smiles and drifts back into fantasy, losing precious time all the while.
"Billy Liar" could have been more fun and less dour, but that would have cut against its message of antic despair. You know what Billy should do with his life, and you know he knows it, too, but like Liz you see also how a dreamer's life can get in the way with reality, and understand why the future belongs to her, not him.