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ABOUT A BOY Send This Review to a Friend
Hugh Grant is so captivating in "About a Boy" that his performance alone should bless the film with popularity. However, there's much more to the film than that, including a clever, dialogue-smart script. Even though you know the story is bound to eventually turn somewhat mushy, which it does, the performances, characterizations and entertaining bits easily compensate. The overall result is a welcome audience-pleaser.
As the egotistical, blasé, woman-chasing Will, Grant amusingly etches the character of a spoiled Londoner who considers himself an island of unencumbered luxury living. Pure fun. No permanent romantic attachments. No kids. When friends suggest he become the godfather to their baby daughter, he shudders at the thought, warning that when she turns eighteen "I'll probably try to shag her." Will doesn't have to work either, thanks to a one-hit-wonder Christmas song by his father that keeps the royalties coming.
The screenplay by Peter Hedges, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, based on Nick Hornby's book, keeps the humor perking, as does the inimitable Grant, who as Will gets the bright idea that frequenting a group of single mothers who meet in solidarity to share their experiences should be a good way to hit on available, vulnerable women whom he can shag. He's a man without conscience, even willing to make up a non-existent offspring. The gambit leads to the unintended. One woman in the group, not one he'd consider having sex with, is the totally messed up Fiona (Toni Collette), who has a son named Marcus, a 12-year-old with desperate needs. His classmates make fun of him. His mom tries to commit suicide. He badly needs a father figure and a friend.
Will makes a good attempt at resisting him. But as nicely played by Nicholas Hoult without a hint of being cloying, Marcus works his way into Will's life, which, as such movie situations dictate, begins to grow more meaningful. He really needs to become more than an empty shell of a man to fulfill himself. All of this is predictable, of course, but the elan of the script, the humor and the performances surmount the trite.
Naturally, there has to be a woman involved, not the off-putting Fiona, but the lovely Rachel, played by the lovely Rachel Weisz. Rachel assumes that Marcus is Will's son, which he encourages her to believe, and she has a son of her own, an hysterical boy resentful of a new man wooing his mom. What will happen when Rachel finds out the truth? She'll feel betrayed, of course, but for how long? You know the drill.
Co-directors Paula and Chris Weitz keep the fun bubbling and Grant, with wicked charm to spare, manages to trump the corny and predictable situations and even turn them into more reasons why this is a Hugh Grant triumph. A Universal Pictures release.
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