About a Boy

About a Boy is an adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel of the same name. The book made no great impression on me, but the film has turned out to be a witty and warm-hearted comedy that also has something to say. It is directed by the Weitz brothers, who made their name with the teen comedy "American Pie", but the crude and smutty gags have fortunately been replaced by a more subtle form of humour and a more serious tone.

Thirty-something Will is a confirmed bachelor. Nor has he ever had any connection to the job market. Instead he lives comfortably off the royalties from a popular Christmas song his father wrote many years ago. Will lives by the philosophy that a person needs nobody but himself. He loathes commitments and relationships of dependency, so if a woman starts expressing a wish for a more serious relationship, he breaks up with her at once.

Will's philosophy of life is put to a serious test when, by a twist of fate, 12-year-old Marcus comes into his life. Will and Marcus meet through Suzie, a single mother Will is trying to pick up. Suzie tries to relieve her depressed friend Fiona by taking her son along on a Sunday outing with Will. The day ends tragically, however, when they find Fiona unconscious after a failed suicide attempt.

Will does not under any circumstances want to get involved in a single mother's psychological problems, let alone act as a mentor to Marcus, who suffers from the absence of a father and his mother's constant failings. When Marcus starts turning up at Will's after school, he is at first consistently dismissive, but in the long run he cannot resist the boy's persistence.

Through his friendship with Marcus, Will finally realises the truth of the poet John Donne's words that no man is an island.

Hugh Grant is convincing as a stupid swine with unsuspected depths, and he gets able support from Nicholas Hoult in the other lead role.