About a Boy (2002)

  Originally Reviewed

Friday June 2, 2006

"In my opinion, all men are islands. The important thing in island living is to be your own activities director. And I find the key is to think of the day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than 30 minutes. Full hours can be a bit intimidating and most activities take about a half an hour."

Watching About A Boy: 3 units. Taking a bath: 1 unit. Thinking about what to write: 1 unit. Writing, reading, reviewing and completing this review: 2 units.

"It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever really have time for a job. How do people cram them in?"

Will Lightman (Hugh Grant) is an island, Ibiza to be exact. See Will really doesn't do anything, and before that...well he really didn't do anything then either. In fact, Will hasn't worked a day in his life, yet he manages to live quite comfortably and well off. That is all because of this one Christmas song that his father had written, Santa's Super Sleigh, which he essentially lives off the royalties, which surprisingly seems to be pretty large. But the only problem with island living is that every once in a while you have to come inland, and mix with the locals. Will hasn't had much success in that, especially in terms of women, what's the point, they'll just end up leaving when they find out his life is pretty "blank". So usually Will ends up breaking off the relationship and in turn causes him to be the bad guy, that is until he found out about single moms.

Will figures single moms are great, they look at you as a great guy because they were once hurt by some jerk before you, you treat them good, and you can have guiltless fun and then a clean breakup because they aren't ready for a long term relationship! So Will decides to make up a kid and go to a SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together) meeting to meet tons of beautiful single moms...well at least single moms. Will meets one single mom though who is rather attractive and goes out on a date with her, she brings along her little girl and an older kid, her friend's son Marcus. 

Marcus could be the birth child of a member of the Beatles and a Vulcan, mixed with the fashion sense of a homeless person. It turns out Marcus's mom is quite a nut job, she sits around at home all day and cries, and attempts to commit suicide, so needless to say Marcus has quite a screwed up life, not to mention he has no friends and continuously gets picked on by the kids at school. Marcus begins to gravitate towards Will, possibly because of the fact that Will doesn't seem "too awful" and since he does nothing maybe he would enjoy doing nothing with someone else.  Plus Marcus doesn't want to come home from school to the pitiful depression cycles of his mother. So Marcus pushes himself upon Will, especially after he figures out that Will doesn't really have a kid.

Will is put off at first by this kid's persistence and nerve but eventually begins to enjoy the company, and tries to give Marcus helpful tips in fashion, music and girls, but shies away from getting involved with his life and his mess of a mother. Surprisingly things begin to go well, Marcus actually meets a girl that likes him, even though she looks like something out of Mad Max, and Will meets someone very beautiful and interesting, Rachel (Rachel Weisz). The only problem is Will doesn't see much of a chance since soon the question of what it is he does, which is nothing, will come up and that will immediately end the conversation, and it does until Will interjects a statement that leads Rachel to believe he has a son. Wanting to get to know her better Will doesn't correct her and goes along with alluding to the fact that indeed he does have a son and his name is Marcus.

Throughout the rest of the film Will must come to grips with his life, tell Rachel the truth, try and set Marcus's mother straight, and prevent Marcus from committing social suicide in singing a love song for his mom at the school rock concert. In the end, Will has to make the attempt to get off of his island and let some other people into his life, to truly find out what he has been missing.

About A Boy is a really entertaining film, and Hugh Grant, as always, doesn't fail to provide an entertaining and comedic performance. They picked a great kid for the role of Marcus; his Spock like look really sets him apart from the rest of the kids and does a great job in spotlighting him as the loner/strange kid. The chemistry between the two of them was great as well and brought forth many a laughs. Toni Collette who plays Marcus's mother also fit the part perfectly and looks very homely and nutty.

Overall, About A Boy is a great story that is well written and well developed, the characters are great, the music is great and the film moves along rather quickly. Having seen this at least five times, my favorite scene is still the rock concert when Marcus performs his song, and Will comes and saves him from making a complete fool out of himself by accompanying him on guitar. In the end, About A Boy is almost perfect, my only complaint is the overuse of useless profanity which seemed to be a little too much for a PG-13 film, on the flip-side in did get a kick out of some of their English equivalents which were constantly used throughout the film like "bugger off" and "wally". So in closing, if you didn't like my review just "bugger off" you "wally"!  

9/10