(out of four)
By David N. Butterworth
Hugh Grant wouldn’t necessarily be my top choice to play Will Freeman, the
narcissistic 30-something sloth of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy but in the
film version of the British writer’s acerbic, best-selling novel, Grant is
absolutely perfect in the role.
He looks the part for one thing, with his trademark floppy hair here replaced
by a fetching, short-cropped do. Gone, too, are the trademark Grant-isms, the
nervous twitterings and bumblings that have graced the likes of Bridget Jones’s
Diary, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Grant
has somehow replaced all that with a performance that borders on brilliant. It’s
absolutely on, he’s absolutely on, and his contributions alone make About
a Boy worth catching.
Shallow Will considers himself to be an island. Ibiza, actually. He does
nothing, has no job, no prospects–he just sits around watching television,
listening to his Bang & Olufsen hi-fi, playing snooker (i.e., “exercising”),
and having his hair done, all the while living off an inheritance afforded him
by his old man who, in 1958, wrote a smashingly successful Christmastide jingle
called Santa’s Super Sleigh. The fact that he does nothing, has no job,
no prospects doesn’t exactly bode well with the women he dates but that’s not
really a problem since Will isn’t into commitment anyway.
All this changes when self-centered Will meets misfit
Marcus, the 12-year-old son of a friend of a woman he picks out of a line-up at
a support group for single parents. Will doesn’t actually have a son, but he
invents one–“Ned”–simply to take advantage of the kind of emotionally
vulnerable women that frequent a group such as SPAT (Single Parents Alone
Together). Marcus, who’s bullied at school and has a suicidal mother at home
(she’s played by the fiery Toni Collette, who turns in yet another superlative
performance), immediately starts showing up like clockwork at Will’s London
flat every day. Eventually Will teaches Marcus how to be cool and, in turn,
Marcus teaches Will how to grow up.
It sounds horribly corny but with Hornby’s text at its center, nicely
tweaked by screenwriter Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) and
the brothers Weitz (who also direct), About a Boy manages to sidestep a
boatload of clichés. In fact, I only had two problems with the film. Firstly, I
didn’t find Nicholas Hoult (who plays Marcus) particularly compelling as an
actor (he’s right for the role but he’s no Haley Joel Osment that’s for
sure). And second of all the cloying song score (provided by the
cloyingly-titled Badly Drawn Boy) detracted from the visuals at every turn.
These two relatively minor concerns aside, About a Boy is nevertheless
an irresistible coming-of-age story that mixes wit with substance and does it in
such convincing style that you actually buy the fact that Grant’s character
could transmogrify from Will the Irresponsible Cad to Will the Responsible
Father Figure over the course of the movie. As for Grant himself, it’s simply
the best work he’s ever committed to celluloid.
