About a Boy
In the 2002 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel, About a Boy, Hugh Grant gives his very best performance. Yes, better than “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” And “Notting Hill.” And “Love, Actually.” When I first saw the film in 2002, I liked it, but was unsettled by similarities I found in myself and Grant’s Will Freeman. That said, the movie stuck with me, and watching it again, I was reminded of why.
Grant’s character, Will Freeman, is a firm rejector of the old adage, “No man is an island.” Quite to the contrary, Will, who has been living off of the royalties of his songwriter father’s one hit, is an isolated man, and life-long bachelor, and quite proud of it. One day, when– in a change of pace for him –a single mother breaks up with HIM, rather than the other way around, he finds a new, exciting dating opportunity present itself, where he finds himself in and out of relationships, but, since the woman breaks up with HIM, he doesn’t have to feel any of the sticky guilt. Enter Marcus (Nicholas Hoult, of “Warm Bodies” and “Jack the Giant Slayer”), the 12-year-old son of a depressed single mom (Toni Collette) Will finds himself in contact with after he starts going to a support group for single parents. No, he isn’t a parent himself, but the lie he tells the group quickly falls apart once Will and Marcus meet. Like Will, Marcus is something of an island, as well. That’s part of why they connect so well, and through their unlikely friendship, it’s quite possible that Will, a textbook narcassist, will learn to put others before himself.
Now, anyone who knows me is aware of the differences in personality between Will and myself; in all honesty, I’m probably closer to Marcus in that department. But since I was very much a loner, who seemed lost in life in my early-mid 20s when “About a Boy” came out, there was something about Will that hit me pretty close to home. I was set in my ways, and even though the isolation Marcus feels from his peers mirrors my own growing up, Will’s acceptance of his seemingly purposeless life seemed very close to mine at the time, when I was not a year at the movie theatre I’ve now spent 11 years at, and more affectingly, I understood his emotional immaturity, which would take a while for me to break away from. Will thinks he knows about life, but when Marcus comes into it, he’s going to realize just how little he understands.
Key to the film is the bond between Will and Marcus, and Grant and Hoult, working from an Oscar-nominated script by Peter Hedges and Paul and Chris Weitz (who co-directed the film, as well), work so well together that you’d swear they were related themselves. (And indeed, seeing Hoult as a young adult in films like “Warm Bodies,” we see that he must have taken in a lot when working with Grant; they both have a dry, subversive wit to them that’s completely engaging, especially during this film’s voiceover.) This effortless chemistry between the two drives the emotional arc of the film, as we see Will and Marcus grow into different people than they were at the beginning of the film, without losing their distinct personalities. Equally important are the women who have profound impacts on these lives, and Collette and Rachel Weisz (as the single mother who inspires the most change in Will) are certainly worth the effort we see these two put forth. Yes, Marcus has something of a romantic interest as well, but it’s his relationship with his mother that cuts deepest, and how intriguing that Collette has been in two great films (the other being “The Sixth Sense”) where she’s had difficult relationships with her sons, and neither one feels as though it’s covering the same territory.
A decade later, how did “About a Boy” hit me? Well, it’s greatness as a character study remained intact, and honestly, it’s emotional impact deepened for me, if only because I look at Will and Marcus now, and I see just how far I’ve come myself in my own emotional journey. In 2002, I hadn’t taken that journey. Like Will, I was a boy trapped in a man’s body.
