Metro Pulse/Movie Guru/About a Boy

Movie Guru Rating:
Enlightening (4 out of 5)

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About A Boy is about what you'd expect, which is a wonderful thing

by Adrienne Martini

After suffering through so many seasons of dashed hopes and unfulfilled promises, this may finally be the summer that movie-goers get exactly what they're expecting. Which isn't to say that every summer movie will be good this year, just that each one actually can be judged by its cover, so to speak.

Take Spider-Man. Rather than just another piece of derivative dreck full of expensive effects but short on substance, Raimi and company delivered the ideal blockbuster. It has its share of pricey CGI, but Raimi pieced the action together with honest-to-Marvel character and plot development. With this film, the audience's expectations are met—and then some.

Or take Attack of the Clones. Almost any film-lover who has paid the slightest bit of attention to the disheartening pre-release buzz will certainly feel fulfilled by how well the movie lives up to these admittedly low expectations. Still, even the most casual Star Wars fan will leave the cinerama satisfied with being immersed in this wonderful fantasy world just one more time, regardless of the fact that the movie itself doesn't stand up so well if judged simply as a movie.

The same can be said of About A Boy, the latest Hugh Grant vehicle that slid into theaters the same weekend as the 12-ton Clone gorilla. But unlike that box-office buster, Boy is actually a well-made movie, one with a reasonably honest story and well-spoken, developed characters, which dazzles with its refreshing charm rather than explosions.

Given the track records of most of the players, Boy's success should have been a given. Grant's abilities go almost without saying. His heady mix of aw-shucks British boyishness and urban über-sophistication make most of his projects work—and may be what helped audiences forgive him for the whole Divine Brown debacle. Without Grant, Four Weddings and a Funeral would never have overcome Andie McDowell and Notting Hill wouldn't have surpassed its predictable script. Sure, Grant's made his share of duds (Mickey Blue Eyes, anyone?) but he largely ends up turning in great performances in satisfying movies.

Adding to the expectations that Grant produces is the source material for Boy—the book of the same name by Nick Hornby. Another Hornby novel, High Fidelity, went to Hollywood and emerged victorious. The movie version, which starred John Cusack as the man-boy record store owner, introduced that great writer to folks on this side of the pond. It turned out to be a great discovery; Hornby's books are full of snappy language and unsappy sentiment that seem to transition from page to screen quite well. And, again, Boy is no exception.

It helps that the producers at Working Title were already familiar with Hornby's style, given that this was the same company that was also responsible for High Fidelity. And Grant had some experience with the Working Title crew as well, given that they also brought Four Weddings, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones's Diary to the screen. The inclusion of De Niro's Tribeca Productions only added to Working Title's formidable cache. On paper, this was a no-brainer. Boy would be a pretty good picture, if the judgment were to be made only on what the principal players had done before.

But, as almost every movie lover knows, just because something looks like it should be good, doesn't mean it will be once all of the final splices are made and the reels ship out. Boy could have gone horribly awry. One weak link could have been directors Chris and Paul Weitz, who are also responsible for bringing the world American Pie and its sequel. While those two flicks are fun, if juvenile, romps, the Weitzes seem as if they'd lack the subtlety for a more mature script. Instead, their infectious energy finds its way onto the screen, informing the performances of both the actual 12-year-old and that of Grant, a 38-year-old with the emotional maturity of his pre-teen cohort. Plus, that same impulse influences their choice of shots as well—their cameras keep finding new ways to look at relatively static events. It's not the same sort of non-stop Brownian movement of, say, Moulin Rouge, but the Weitzes use their adolescent curiosity to constantly bring a quirky visual appeal.

So what is About A Boy actually about? Grant, an avowed bachelor who considers himself an island and lives off a trust fund of sorts, runs through a string of women. Eventually, he hooks up with a single mom and realizes just how grateful single moms are to receive his affections. And so the plot begins: Grant attends a single parent encounter group, meets a cute single mom, and ends up befriending the kid of her melancholic best friend. The kid, wonderfully played by Nicholas Hoult, is in a mess of his own and sees Grant as a lifeline. Twists and turns ensue—most of which never fail to surprise and resonate, somehow—and the story ends happily, but not quite in the way you'd expect it to.

Like High Fidelity and/or Bridget Jones before it, Boy isn't a great work of cinema art that will leave generations discussing its inherent symbolisms. It is, however, a well-crafted story that has been translated into a well-crafted movie that exceeds your expectations. And, hopefully, that is a trend that will continue throughout the summer.