A man in his thirties who believes that his luck has finally changed when he gets a job as a chef in a sleazy cockroach infested rock 'n' roll club stumbles into trouble when he falls in love with the 19 year old who is betrothed to the clubs owner.
Hugh Grant stars in this adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel about a feckless, wealthy, single 30-something who invents an imaginary son as a way of meeting available single parents, and consequently develops a friendship with a troubled 12 year old boy.
The film version of Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy takes a deeper though no less entertaining approach than the easy laughs of Fever Pitch and High Fidelity. The "coming together" of idle playboy Will (Hugh Grant) and put-upon loner Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) is a revealing tale of self-understanding and role reversal. Will finds that being yourself is of little consequence without a defining human context, while Marcus finds that pleasing others counts for little without a degree of self-confidence. How they arrive at this complementary awareness is the intriguing subject matter of the film, involving well-meaning single mothers, difficult adolescents and helpless older adults. Yet there's a wider significance to all this in the guise of human stereotypes--how we fall into them and how we can try to get out of them. The film's wit and amusement comes down to deft and understated directing from Chris and Paul Weitz, and a snappily crafted screenplay from Peter Hedges and the Weitz brothers. Grant clips his hair as well as his vowels for a believable and ultimately sympathetic Will--by far his best performance since Four Weddings and a Funeral. As Marcus, Hoult is convincingly self-dependent, but could have been even more self-absorbed. Toni Colette is a dead-ringer for the well-meaning but ineffectual hippie mother Fiona, while Rachel Weisz gives her best screen performance to date as the attractive and vulnerable Rachel, with whom Will comes of age emotionally. Badly Drawn Boy's soundtrack will delight those who enjoy his brand of reconstituted 1970s Dylan; the title track has a wistful charm and there's a gem of an instrumental in the "Countdown" sequence. About a Boy is in the best traditions of British comedy: enlightening as it amuses, it's a film to enjoy and come back to. --Richard Whitehouse
Bridget Jones's Diary 2: The Edge Of Reason She's back! The perfect boyfriend the perfect life what could possibly go wrong? Four weeks into her relationship with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) is already becoming uncomfortable. With the reappearance of old flame Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) things are about to get very complicated... About A Boy: Growing up has nothing to do with age... Will (Grant) is a 38-year old Londoner living a bachelor lifestyle on the back of royalties earned from a Christmas song penned by his father some years previously. A serial womaniser Will comes up with the idea of attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. Inventing a two-year old son for himself he meets lonely bullied schoolboy Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) and his depressed music therapist mother (Toni Collette). The intelligent Marcus soon learns Will's secret and so blackmails him into letting him hang out at his place and watch afternoon telly. However what starts out as an uneasy quiz show watching alliance turns into an unlikely friendship...
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