***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Weisz, Nat Gastiain Tena, Augustus Prew, and Sharon Small
Directed by Paul and Chris Weitz & written for the screen by Paul Wietz, Chris Weitz, and Peter Hedges, from the novel by Nick Hornby
2002 PG13
Dozen-or-so Best Films of 2002
Hugh Grant is such a cad. He was the cad extraordinaire in “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” the suave swindler in Woody Allen’s “Small Time Crooks,” and the self-obsessed flake in “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” I guess he plays the nice guy lead in romantic comedies from time to time and I heard he even made an action movie called “Extreme Measures.” Whatever. To me he’ll always be a cad.
Grant’s best cad to date is probably in “About a Boy,” the story of a shamelessly despicable man-boy who, with the help of his friendship with a real boy, learns to become a human being. Movies like this come along every couple of years, in which a bad man’s friendship with someone younger turns him into a good man. Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino both won Oscars for playing such roles in “As Good as It Gets” and “Scent of a Woman.” Grant’s latest cad is a moderately wealthy Londoner who lives off the rights to an obnoxious Christmas carol written by his father. Grant has never worked a day in his life, or had a serious girlfriend, or sought any kind of meaning in anything besides living like a spoiled child. He has plenty of toys—a fast car, a big television, and a nice apartment—and a steady stream of women and social engagements keeps him busy. But it’s an empty existence and it’s only a matter of time before he finds that out.
The catalyst for Grant’s change from wastrel to decent guy is a young boy. The boy is everything Grant is not: at school he is a social outcast, with tacky clothes and a bad haircut, and the constant object of ridicule. More importantly, he is sincere and serious, which is something Grant could never be. The boy is played by Nicholas Hoult, an above average child actor, but no Haley Joel Osment, even though he remarks in his narration that he wishes he were. He also shares Osment’s mother from “The Sixth Sense,” the always-impressive Toni Collette (“Changing Lanes,” “Clockwatchers,” “Emma,” and “The Hours”). Theirs is perhaps the most interesting relationship in the film: she is doting, loving, and sincere with her son, but is oblivious to most of what the boy feels about school and the world in general. She’s also a troubled, depressed woman and, after an act of selfish despair early in the film, Hoult tries to do whatever he can to keep her happy, even though this is often in direct conflict with what might make him happy. This causes him to turn to Grant, at first not as a friend or mentor, but as a possible mate for his despondent mother.
Grant meets Hoult after he invents an infant son so he can join a single parents’ support group and meet women (this leads Grant on a hilarious quest to buy an infant car seat and dirty it up in a parking lot to make it look used). Later, after Grant and Hoult have become friends, Grant is falling for a beautiful woman (Rachel Weisz) and finds that the only way he can keep her interest is to pretend Hoult is his son. These two charades are not empty-headed plot manipulations, but actually show Grant enjoying the life that could have been—if I had a son, if I had a family, if I were like everyone else. Hoult has introduced meaning into Grant’s life. The key to Grant’s character is that, somewhere, there is a ball of self-loathing for his void of an existence.
What sets “About a Boy” apart from the average comedy is how well it handles its central theme about happiness. The movie begins with Grant rejecting John Dunne’s famous axiom that “no man is an island,” and living at a level of moderate hedonism. Even Collette, who seems so artistic and free-thinking, behaves as if her own life-threatening despair is somehow her exclusive property, an island with no bearing on her son’s life. Only Hoult, the young boy, sees through the walls the grown-ups have built. I’ve tried making myself happy, he tells Grant, and that didn’t work, so I’m going to try to make other people happy. Yes, Grant replies, but if other people make you happy, then other people can make you unhappy as well.
But enough existentialism. “About a Boy” is damn funny, chiefly because Grant is so magnificently insouciant and shamelessly shallow, and is able to call upon some of the best facial expressions in show business. He could probably carry the right film without saying a word, but then we would miss out on how effortlessly, even accidentally he seems to toss off most of his dialogue. The movie also contains good supporting performances, including another child actor (Augustus Prew) who plays Rachel Weisz’s nearly psychotic son. Like just about every other laugh in the movie, his emotional problem isn’t thrown in as a cheap gag, but reflects something more serious (in his case, the turmoil felt by children of single parents). She’s not keen on your dad, the boy shrieks to Hoult, because she’s already keen on me.
British rock musician Damon Gough’s (a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy) soundtrack is an upbeat, yet melancholy assembly of acoustic guitar, piano, and strings. Like in “The Graduate,” the songs become a sort of Greek chorus that genuinely adds to the film, not by simply reinforcing what’s on the screen, but by commenting on it, however obliquely. The biggest surprise credit to “About a Boy” is its screenwriters and directors, brothers Paul and Chris Weitz. Their other films include “American Pie,” which, in addition to being morally questionable, I found neither especially funny nor well-directed. Here the Weitz brothers demonstrate a greater depth of characterization and a considerably more athletic directorial style. In “About a Boy’s” DVD commentary track, they remark how “American Pie” was shot “like a firing squad,” and they describe the various shots from “About a Boy” that quote Scorsese, Godard, and Truffaut.
“About a Boy” is from a novel by Nick Hornby, who also inspired John Cusack’s “High Fidelity,” another terrific movie about a thirtysomething guy learning to not be so self-centered. The trick with stories like this is to make a man who isn’t just likeable when he’s a cad, but who stays likeable when he gives self-improvement a shot, and is even able to get the audience to root for him. I think we like movies like this because we so often feel like self-centered schmucks, hoping we not only have a chance to improve ourselves, but that we will be cheered on when we do.
Finished March 10th, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Friday & Saturday Night
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