About a Boy Review
by John Sylva (DeWyNGaLe AT aol DOT com)June 17th, 2002
ABOUT A BOY (2002)
Reviewed by John Sylva
Call it Will Freeman's Diary. In the vain of the comically humanistic Bridget Jones's Diary comes About a Boy, and, although it's based on the 1999 Nick Hornby novel of the same name, you'd almost swear directors Paul & Chris Weitz set out with the goal of creating a male Bridget Jones in Will Freeman. Hugh Grant–who gave an against-type performance in Bridget Jones–is even the film's star. But where About a Boy succeeds that Jones did not is in its sense of need for its protagonist to put his life on track. His odyssey is not one that requires Miss Right or some phony spiritual enlightening, it's one that requires this Will Freeman to come to some sort of realization about himself–about those around him–before he can move on with his life in clear conscience.
Living a life off your father's fortune from a cheesy Christmas song he once wrote may sound like a dream–and to Will, at the stage we meet him in the film's exposition, it is–but there comes a time in life when one must set aside his or her own self for the cause of the greater good. Sure, taking the opposing view for a moment, we're told to do this by our elders every day–"put others first"–but does one not deserve to live life for his or herself as well? Both arguments can be made with a high degree of validity, and there is–as Will finds–a solution to the conundrum. In the same way King told the oppressed in his stirring "The Ways of Meeting Oppression," Will is forced to find a level of common ground between the two extremes of caring too little and caring too much. Will's oppression is certainly different than the oppression of the African-Americans' in King's era, but, on his level, it becomes the same; life is pushing him into a closet and throwing away the key, and he must face whether or not he will find the means to find a way out.
The individuals in question that become Will's personal responsibility to rescue are mother & son Fiona (Toni Collette) and Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), also fighting against life's oppression. Fiona suffers from horrible depression and is suicidal at nearly all times; Marcus is a teenager discovering life isn't the fairy tale it's made out to be when you're young. Will meets these two by chance–he actually just wanted to pick up a date at a single parents organization–but Marcus' confiding in Will is too strong for him to ignore, especially when one considers he may or may not have a mother when he gets home from school. Their relationship becomes one of great irony; a 12 year old boy's only friend is another boy at heart, who, nearing the age of 40, has done absolutely nothing in his life, thereby making it all the more rewarding to watch as both must learn a great deal from each other to move forward. All of which leads to an even greater irony; About a Boy is the funniest movie of the year to date. It may deal with some of the most complex and unanswerable human issues in existence, but it's always in a way that's light and breezy, allowing the film to work on two levels to two different kinds of viewers; to one, it's nothing but "that one movie where a duck gets killed by a stale loaf of bread", and, to the other, it's a comedy that understands humanity and is simply willing to laugh about it.
Aesthetically, for a low-key British film, its presentation is uncharacteristically bold; Nick Moore's innovative editing and Badly Drawn Boy's accompanying soundtrack are particularly strong. But these are both secondary to the thoroughly entertaining screenplay and the terrifically understated cast. And, while it may be the role of a lifetime for Grant, and Hoult is certainly a talented new find, it's Collette who winds up stealing the show. It's nothing short of a miracle that the actress manages to draw a line between humor and sadness in Fiona's suicidal state of mind, making for a spectacle of a performance. And, in turn, her performance can stand as a model for the film itself; the boundaries between happiness and sadness are never too clear, especially when it comes to a little something called life.
GRADE: A-
Film reviewed June 15th, 2002.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
