| I like Hugh Grant, I like British comedies, and I enjoy romantic comedies. Liking all that, I thought I would thoroughly enjoy �About a Boy�, the next movie by Chris Weitz, and Paul Weitz (they did the sexually explicit, and gross �American Pie� movies before this one), because it starred Hugh Grant, and was a British comedy and romantic comedy, but I was marginally wrong. It was quite a different film, as most British films are, but this is not necessarily a great thing to be. The story of the film is fairly simple, which is fine for this sort of movie. At first, it�s about what a guy will do to get a date. In this film, it includes going to a single parenting session and lying, saying that you have a kid, just so you can meet women. Then, after meeting someone, going to the local baby store and buying baby supplies to make it appear as if you have a child. This is what Hugh Grant does to meet a woman whose friend has a son, who ends up becoming Hugh�s �son�, because the boy can relate better to Will Freeman (Hugh Grant), than the mother and because the mother is well�suicidal. Will then falls in love with another single mom (Rachel Weisz), and the story proceeds from there. The funniest part in the film is undoubtedly the �duck incident�. Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the �Boy� is picking stale pieces of bread of a larger piece of stale bread and decides to throw the entire loaf of stale bread into a pond, because it is utterly inedible. When the bread lands in the pond, it lands on a duck and kills the duck. When Will Freeman, and the girl he is on the date with see the boy, he points to the duck and implies what happened as soon as a security guard walks by and sees the duck. He asks why the bread is on top of the duck and Will tries to explain that the duck was already dead and Marcus tried to sink it. The situation is hilarious, but the rest of the film doesn�t suite me nearly as funny as that part did. One scene is where Will gives Marcus a Rap CD for Christmas to make Marcus a more �regular� type of a person, so he can fit in. The CD, as we hear it later in the film, turns out to have profanity in it, and that�s the entire point of the joke. We are supposed to laugh because it�s so �cool� that Will, an adult, got Marcus a CD with cussing in it. To me, that�s just an all too real reflection on our society, and the low morals of it. To a person that didn�t care about morals, or how people live out their lives I guess that would appear funnier. If you found both the scenes I just described hilarious, then you will love the film. If you found one of the two funny, you will think the film is mediocre just like me. If you thought neither of them funny at all, then I simply advise you to not see the picture. There are other comedic parts, of course, in the film, but all of them are basically one of those two types of comedic scenes. The things that brought this movie up to a little higher quality were the great performances from its cast. Hugh Grant was his usual comedic, yet romantic self like he was in �Notting Hill� (The Hugh Grant romantic comedy, that all his others are compared to). Nicholas Hoult is fantastic as the boy, and would probably hold up well in an acting competion against Haley Joel Osment. Rachel Weisz also gives a good performance, is pretty, and well cast for her role. Marcus� mom, played by Toni Collette brings the right wackiness, yet, at points, seriousness to the character. �About a Boy� doesn�t really teach any good morals, but instead shows kids of about fourteen years of age using profanity, and sees it as normality, and that�s not really too funny or entertaining to listen to. I would rather hear twenty profane words from an adult in a film, than hear five from a kid influenced to say them by an adult (take a look at Luke 17:1,2). This isn�t Grant�s best film. It�s probably not his worse either. It�s about average for him. This might start a successful career for Nicholas Hoult, and bring a few chuckles here and there, but that�s all you can really count on the film to do. |
| About a Boy |
| MPAA Classification: PG-13 (For language and sex related humor) Cast: Hugh Grant, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette Director: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz |
| **1/2 stars |