IN THE DARK/Jonathan Richards
ABOUT A BOY
Directed by Chris and Paul Weitz
PG-13, 102 minutes
There is a bracing appeal to Hugh Grant's unapologetic caddishness in About a Boy that is so funny and refreshing that it almost survives the character's descent into reformed decency in the latter stages of the movie. Grant plays Will, one of the two central figures in Nick Hornby's story of a couple of misfits. The other is Marcus, a 12-year-old boy played by newcomer Nicholas Hoult. The two come at their misfitry from different directions. Young Marcus would like to be one of the crowd, but he's such an outsider in school that even the other geeks won't play with him, because he attracts bullies the way raw meat draws mongrels. Will, on the other hand, has no ambition to be integrated with society. He scoffs at the platitude that `No man is an island' (a quote he ascribes to Jon Bon Jovi), and is perfectly happy to be an archipelago unto himself.
Will, in fact, has no ambition whatsoever beyond the serial shagging of as many beautiful women as he can usher through the revolving door of his life. He lives off the royalties of a hit Christmas song his father penned back in the Sixties, a bouncy little number called `Santa's Super Sleigh' that floods the airwaves and elevators at holiday time with the grating ubiquity of `The Little Drummer Boy'. He has no job, and has never had one. He's not particularly proud of this – in fact, he recognizes that it can be a drawback in impressing women – but there it is, and he doesn't even have the ambition required to make up a cover story. He's handsome, he's charming, he's intelligent, and that's enough for him. And enough, apparently, to hold the interest of the women he beds for the few weeks that he wants the relationships to last.
A ruse to meet disposable women leads Will to join a support group called SPAT (Single Parents Acting Together). Single mothers feel guilty about sexual carryings-on, so they don't put up much resistance when the time comes to put an end to things. In fact, they often think of it themselves, and break off the affair with much apologetic weeping and professions of `It isn't you, you're a wonderful man…it's me….' For a hedonistic slacker with a full-throttle libido and a horror of commitment, this is as close to paradise as it gets.
Most of the women in the group are grim types with Lorena Bobbitt tee-shirts, but there is one Irish beauty named Suzie (Victoria Smurfit) who fills the bill. When Suzie winds up babysitting a friend's kid on one of their dates, Will meets Marcus, and Marcus decides Will may be just what he needs to distract his mother (Toni Collette) from her teary bouts of depression. The romantic intrigue doesn't take, but Marcus takes to dropping by Will's house after school, and gradually a reluctant bond forms. And when Will falls for single-mom Rachel (Rachel Weisz) and needs a son for cover, Marcus agrees to play the part.
About a Boy is really about two boys, the 12-year-old and the 38-year-old, and their mutually supportive coming of age. Its wry comic tone is handled dexterously by writer/directors Paul and Chris Weitz, whose previous notoriety stemmed from their adolescent primer on the sexual possibilities of pastry, American Pie. This might not seem the obvious pedigree for a shot at a movie like this, but the Weitz brothers have interesting roots. Their grandmother was legendary Mexican actress Lupita Tovar, who was honored for lifetime achievement a couple of years ago at the Santa Fe Film Festival. Grandpa was producer/agent Paul Kohner, who represented Billy Wilder and Ingmar Bergman. Mom was actress Susan Kohner, and Dad was fashion designer John Weitz. Chris went to Cambridge, and he and Paul discuss the character of Will with references to obscure 19th century literature. These guys are obviously no palookas.
It would all be for naught, however, without the work of the two boys. Hoult is a great find, a boy actor who can manage to be appealing without being preternaturally cute. He has a rosy complexion and Vulcan eyebrows, and a grounded sense of self. And Hugh Grant gives a terrific performance, blending cynicism, charm, and a dogged shallowness that defies efforts by his friends to penetrate beyond it to hidden depths. Grant, like an earlier generation's matinee idol of the same surname, gets less than his due as an actor because what he does appears so deceptively effortless.
As the plot plays out to its conclusion, the movie loses some of its steam. Goodness and satisfactory behavior raise their ugly heads, lessons are learned, and there is even a sort of redemption for Roberta Flack's brimstone-and-treacle ballad `Killing Me Softly'. A story which earned its welcome in cheeky slackerhood wears its newfound probity uncomfortably, and the joy leeches a bit in the throes of a happy landing. But that's not until the end, and getting there is twice the fun.
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