No man is an island. Every man is only responsible for his own doings; the concerns and troubles of others are none of his and have no direct effect on him. The aptly tag named Will Freeman (Hugh Grant), a hedonistic do-nothing who freeloads off his father's royalty money, believes that life can be beautiful deducing his days into a pattern of comfortable "units" (watching television, getting his hair done, buying things, and dating women), just as long as he remains emotionally and intellectually unattached to anything outside of himself.
Dating has always been a problem with that theory: This unit requires emotional attachment. Will finds the solution to this problem when accidentally getting involved with one of London's many single mothers. He can get all the pleasures of dating without the emotional attachment. These women are so wrapped up in their own issues that they aren't keen on Will's faking. And best of all, they break up with him first! So he goes on the prowl, and joins a single parent group named S.P.A.T. (Single Parents Alone Together), hoping he'll meet up with some attractive single mothers. Instead, he hooks up with Marcus (the coulda-been-Harry-Potter Nicholas Hoult).
Marcus is a 12 year old school boy, whose eccentric (and suicidal) mother Fiona (Toni Collette) is the cause of much social rejection and emotional disturbance. When he meets Will during a S.P.A.T. group picnic, Marcus believes he's found a way out of his sad, dreary life. Of course if this was typical Hollywood material, About a Boy would turn into a Disneyfied screwball comedy in which Marcus, the unbearably cute and precocious kid (in the vein of Macauley Culkin), tries nearly acrobatic methods to connect Will and Fiona in their fatefully decided matrimonial union. About A Boy wasn't that movie.
Instead, it's a richly developed character study of two different people who inadvertently help each other grow both socially and emotionally. About a Boy is an unexpected winner, a sharply done film that defies the clichés that would almost certainly sink this film like a heavily fatal loaf of bread. It's a surprisingly daring film, considering its audience-friendly story line. So most audiences will be confused with the film's two now-you-see-'em-now-you-don't edits, but it's refreshing to see a mainstream film that uses such inventive narrative techniques.
On the other hand, About a Boy works so well because of its remarkable performances. I don't care much for Hugh Grant, but in this film, not only is he uncommonly hot, but he's also uncommonly good. For some reason he makes this almost typical Hugh Grant role different from all the self-absorbed jerks he's played in the past. Beside Grant, Hoult holds his own. He's not painfully cute, nor is he pitifully detached. He combines just the right touch of cynicism with the right amount of naivety to make Marcus work. Toni Collette goes without saying. She's always good, even in the worst of films.
I was ready to hate About a Boy, mostly because it was based on a Nicholas Hornby book. I've never read anything by him, but I did see High Fidelity, and thought it strange that a movie would ask us to sympathize with a guy who'd blow us off the second we said his favorite band sucked. What development did he have in that film other than he got the girl? I never saw any real change. In About a Boy, you have the snob, but he's not begging for your sympathy, and before he can start a meaningful relationship he's got to change his worldview first. What's even better is that he gradually comes to this point. He's still learning to grow even at the end of the movie, as is Marcus. This isn't some commentary on how foolish adults are - The kids learn lessons as well.
So if you're in for something that's not clichéd, definitely see About a Boy. It's one of the most refreshing comedies of the year.