"Oh no no no, no, no you've always had that wrong, I realy am this shallow" (About a Boy (DVD))

Member Name: Halasir

Product:	About a Boy (DVD)
Date:	05/04/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great comedy, good for most audiences, gentle but fun plot

Disadvantages: None

Plot Summary:

The movie stars Hugh Grant as Will, a 38-year old selfish and shallow bachelor who doesn't have to work, as he lives off the royalties of a very successful Christmas song "Santa's Super Sleigh" which his father wrote. After a brief relationship with a single mother called Angie (who to his delight dumped him just before he was about to dump her), will realizes that they are the kind of women he would like to date, so decides to join a single parents group called SPAT in order to meet single women, pretending to have a two-year-old son called Ned.

He meets Suzie at one of the meetings who he likes, and agrees to go to one of the group's functions, a picnic, in an attempt to court her. This is where will firsts Marcus, a 12-year-old whose mother is depressed and suicidal. The rest of the film is about Will's unlikely frienship with Marcus and Will coming to the realisation that his "live-for-himself" attitude needs to change if he is going to be happy in the long term.


My Opinion:

I very much like this film. It's fairly gentle plot, combined with its funny and well written dialog makes for an entertaining film. Will's character, despite his complete shallowness, is actually rather likeable, and Hugh Grant plays the character very well. This may be because he is so open about his personality flaws, for example when he bluntly rejects the offer of being the godfather of his friends' second child, insisting how shallow he is, and what a bad choice he is for the role. I like the way of how having Marcus in his life manages to help change Will's selfishness as he tries to help Marcus fit in at school.

One thing I find rather funny and ironic is how will rather despises the song which is solely responsible for providing his income to maintain his luxurious lifestyle, which I think helps adds to his depth of character. As A British film, the styles of comedy are drastically different to what you would expect from an equivalent American produced film. Most of the comedy comes from explaining to the audience Will's character and how his lies keep digging himself deeper into trouble. An example of the type of comedy is when Will says "Alright" to Rachel's son, who reluctantly replies "Alright" whilst turning his head away, which I find hilarious.

Marcus' character is well acted, but he doesn't provide as much humor as Will's character does, as the story's is really about Will, with Marcus as a support character. My favorite part of the film is the painful scene towards the end in which Marcus is singing "Killing Me Softly" on stage to the whole school, and will bravely comes on with a guitar to help him. The pair singing it together makes me cringe with embarrassment, but is still hilarious. Even more painful to watch is when Will does an unrequested encore by himself after the song has ended, which represents that he has really got into it, and though potentially suicidal to his reputation, he is throwing himself into something, finding the desired "meaning" he is after in his life.

An interesting thing about the film is it features frequent narration from both Will and Marcus, in a sort of "Peep Show" style, which reveals to the viewers the thoughts inside their heads, which is a great source of comedy, helps us better understand the plot and the mentality of the two characters and allows us to more easily identify the distinction between their two different personalities. The music is fairly sparse in the film, but the pieces that come up are used to good effect, and because this is not an action film, there's barely any suspense, so an extensive musical score to accompany action sequences and suspenseful sequences (which a film like "Predator" has), is of course, not necessary, The film is rated 12. There's barely any violence, but some occasional strong language and a drug reference or two so I very much doubt it will offend many people, so it's a safe watch.

I would highly recommend this film. It's fun to watch on your own, but better to watch in a group as there's lots of comedy to share. There's nothing I particularly dislike about the film, and I can't really ask for more from this type of slow paced gentle comedy, but I give it 4 stars due to the fact that's its not my favorite genre of film. You can pick the film up pretty cheap on DVD (I got it for £4 in Blockbuster), which is great value for the amount of laughs. I also found the film to have pretty good replay value, so you should be able to watch it several times without getting bored, not because the plot is complex and you might miss things on the first watch, but simply because the funny moments and general plot, are still funny when watched again.

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Stars: Hugh Grant
Running Time: 97 Mins
Age Rating: 12 (strong language, drug references)
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Widescreen)
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Summary: Highly Recommended, a great piece of British comedy