About A Boy Details

Nick Hornby's answer to Bridget Jones gets the Brit flick treatment from a surprising source, with American Pie directors Chris and Paul Weitz at the helm and Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a backer. But, unlike the Americanised version of Hornby's High Fidelity, this movie remains on home turf. Hugh Grant is on excellent form as Will, thirtysomething singleton and the most shallow middle-class man in Christendom — or more specifically, north London — who intends to use single-parent support groups to pick up women. One of his would-be conquests introduces him to Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) — a troubled boy with a suicidal mother, played by Toni Collette — who forcibly “adopts” the unwilling Will. All goes surprisingly well until the confirmed bachelor falls for single mother Rachel Weisz, which puts a strain on their friendship. Genuinely funny and moving, this is both an endearing examination of masculinity and a challenge to male isolationism.

Amusing comedy about the beginnings of masculine maturity, at its best when not taking itself too seriously.