Film Review: About a Boy

Another Hornby book hits the big screen

Behind every great man, there is a great woman and inside every man there is a boy. Single man Will (Hugh Grant) hasn't bothered growing up, while young boy world-weary Marcus (Nicholas Hoult, yet another child prodigy), is old before his time. Both are miserable and unpleasant, but hey there's good in everybody, and put two sad gits together and they just might cheer each other up!

Hey presto, they do, and the audience too. About a boy is a film peopled with sad and unpleasant characters, who, through a well-told story and a dollop of black humor, grow on you, until your rooting for a happy ending.

Based on the book by Nick Hornby, the film cleverly uses two narrators, some fine actors, and a brilliant soundtrack from Badly Drawn Boy, to maintain the spirit of the book.

Most of all directors Chris and Paul Weitz must be credited for keeping a reign on Grant's foppish ways and silly mannerisms, in fact this is the first Hugh Grant film I've seen, where his eyelids fail to flicker uncontrollably.

A lot better are we for that too. To paraphrase Badly Drawn Boy: ipso facto not a bad film

Kevin Smith

Click for a review of Badly Drawn Boy's soundtrack album to 'About a boy'