Continued ...
09 May 2002

Two Boys & A Lot Of Ladies:  After writing so much about other films this week, I’m a little anxious about reviewing About A Boy because I want to do the film justice.  I was taken enough with the film at a screening last week that I bought the book and read it over the weekend.  The first two acts of the movie are remarkably faithful to the book, except that the filmmakers decided not to date the film in the early 90s as Nick Hornby’s novel does.  The third act adds one new scene created from scratch and chooses not to develop all the relationships in quite same way as the book. 

As a critic who does not put a lot of weight in loyalty to source material – a book is a book and a movie is a movie – the question I care about is whether the movie works.   The answer is an exuberant, “yes!” The truth is, my biases about the film going in, before I saw it or read the book, were all about the previous Brit Flick Comedies that have done well, but have been fairly fluffy.  What floored me about About A Boy was that it was so much more than any of the previous entries.  Hugh Grant is charming, but he’s more than that.  This is not only his best performance ever.  It’s the best role he’s had to play in his career.  The character has a real arc and is challenged from all emotional directions.  Like the screen adaptation of Hornby’s High Fidelity, About  A Boy demands that the audience keeps up with the story and relates to the characters, even when the characters are quite different than almost any one of us.

About A Boy is really about two boys, Grant’s character, the 36-year-old Will and 12-year-old Nicholas Hoult’s character, Marcus.  Will has the “perfect” life for a boy.  He’s independently wealthy, he’s good looking and isn’t vulnerable to real emotional pain.  There are hints that there could be more in life, but he manages to put those distractions in their place, breaking his life into easy-to-control, single serving slots, conceptually reminiscent of both Fight Club and Bridget Jones’ Diary.  Marcus, on the other hand, lives with his mother, who is constantly crying.  He’s being picked on at his new school.  And, as in the old schoolyard taunt, his mother dresses him funny.  Will is happily invisible.  Marcus wants to be invisible.  Both boys are about to grow up, but neither one has any idea how and why.

One central theme in the movie is single parenting, as Will comes to realize that the single-mom culture is the best place to find guilt-free sex with women who can’t commit.  The film, as did the book, manages to breathe real truth into its characterizations of these women, covering a wide range of “types.”

One of the “types” is played by Rachel Weisz, who gives one of her best performances ever in a very quiet, smart role.  Her character is also the victim of one of the few missteps in the novel-to-movie conversion, as the book answers the questions that seem to be short-handed in the film.  Still, the scenes she does have work amazingly well, particularly her confrontation with a red-handed (and red-faced) Grant. 

Directors Chris and Paul Weitz, along with casting director Priscilla John, have done a perfect job putting together a team of actors.  Toni Collette could not be better fit.  Nicholas Hoult may or may not have a career after this film, but as Marcus, he is a true find.  One of the single mothers is played by Victoria Smurfit, who screams “Movie Star!” with her unconventional beauty and absolute sensuality.  Mark Drewry, as Marcus’ dad, could not be better – and he has a certain future as the M’Kay guy if there is every a live version of South Park. 

The progress of Chris and Paul Weitz as directors is notable.  This is complex material, even if it has the sheen of a slick, commercial entertainment.  I do wish that they had allowed the third act to play out without creating an event that wasn’t in the book.  One of the things I loved about the book was that you could see the changes in the characters without a life-defining “third-act” event.  (Ironically, the book has the characters explicitly saying that they would not do what they do in the film.)  I would also have liked to see the relationship between the Grant and Weisz characters play out more like the book since, again, she represented a woman who we don’t otherwise get to see… a single mother who knows what she wants and who is smart enough to help Will know what he wants.  Nonetheless, the Weitzes do excellent work.  And, to be fair, they add a few things that are quite wonderful.

As you might be able to tell by now, I don’t want to get too much into story.  Experience the story for yourself.  The thing I find myself loving about About A Boy is that it confirms one of my greatest dreams, that love and a little effort can make our heavy loads in life a little lighter.  People can change, if they want to change.  The film is not afraid to point a finger or to force its characters to point the finger at themselves when the moment for that arrives.  

About A Boy is one of the great love stories of this or any year… love of parent to child and child to parent, love of self, the platonic love of someone you never saw coming and ultimately, the love you thought you could never have and would never want, which changes you forever.  It’s a beautiful little film that calls out to me a little more every day, the way the best art does.  No superheroes, no CG… just a good, rich story well told.

READER OF THE DAY:  The Stone writes:  “I'm not sure I understand how your Spider-Man review reaches the enthused conclusion it does.  I thought many of it's flaws would weigh more heavily on you than they seemed to.  The 17 script problems you mentioned were spot-on, and to me, numerous enough to

make them difficult to forgive.  You said the movie had one great fight sequence-- and you chose wisely.  But a fair share of the movie WAS action-- flat, unengaging, uninspired action. 

I'm astonished how forgiving the majority of reviews have been.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at 84% positive!  But then again, I guess I enjoyed it, though my opinion is souring.  I guess likeable characters and earnest heroics go a long way these days.”

E ME:  If you could kill a movie character, get away with it AND get to continue sleeping with Diane Lane/Richard Gere, whose obit would I be writing tomorrow?