Review by Calvin Trager

May 15, 2002

"We thought you were a person with hidden depths."
"No, I really am this shallow."

So speaks Will Freeman of himself in the silver screen adaptation of Nick Hornby's About a Boy. Will (Hugh Grant) is an unmotivated lay-about, a guy who revels in the ultimate single lifestyle and wants a relationship to complement it, not replace it. When he breaks up with the single mother of a young child, he has a revelation: Single mothers enjoy companionship and company, but aren't seeking a full-time relationship. In other words, Will can have his cake and eat it, too.

To this end, he joins a single parents' group where he finds exactly what he's hoping for: Suzie (Victoria Smurfit), a single mother who develops an interest in him. What he isn't hoping for - or expecting - is Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the 12-year-old son of her friend, Fiona (Toni Collette), who accompanies them on a fateful picnic which connects their lives in most unexpected ways.

Literate audiences familiar with Hornby's book will be thrilled at the very faithful translation of the novel to the big screen. Like High Fidelity, the last Hornby project to find its way to Hollywood, the book does not emerge entirely unscathed from the screenwriter's pen. Fortunately, also like High Fidelity, the changes made from the source material - a reduction in one subplot and a somewhat earlier introduction to "the boy" - are so minor as not to change either the tone of the piece or the personalities of the characters therein.

Unlike the film version of High Fidelity, the characters remain in Hornby's Britain, but nothing about the dialogue will alienate American audiences, either in idiom or cultural allusion. In fact, this merely reinforces the universality of the themes in Hornby's books, which play equally well whether set in Britain or America.

Freeman retains Grant's typecast of unforced charm, but his line about being shallow is more than a self-effacing punch-line; it betrays the scheming heart of the character. Will's plans are not malicious, but they are selfish, seeking to preserve the carefree ease of his lifestyle. Will is that person we all know who works very hard to avoid hard work, and that he manages to keep our sympathies through the film despite being a self-absorbed liar for much of it is a testament to Grant's movie-star likeability.

The film hinges on the relationship between Will and young Marcus, so the casting of young Nicholas Hoult is a fantastic one. While Hoult's delivery sometimes strays into that place where child actors tend to go - being unable to fully emote without presenting the appearance of emoting - the chemistry between him and Grant is effortlessly endearing and propels the film. Equally important are those moments between him and his mother, and Hoult proves that his capacity for dramatic moments is no less than that for comedy. Toni Collette has a repertoire full of brilliant performances, and her supporting part here continues that streak with the film's most dramatic role.

Those who are unfamiliar with the novel may go to see this film expecting a wacky romantic situational comedy. In that respect, they may be disappointed. But they will also have the opportunity to see a charming character study with lots of quietly comic moments which induce smiles and warming grins rather than belly laughs, and to observe a world where people move by the weight of their emotions rather than the conventions of a plot which contrives to push two dissimilar personalities together for the sole reason that the end credits are about to start.