Made for Hugh Grant About A Boy sees the actor easing into his role

Nigam Nuggehalli

About A Boy is based on a Nick Hornby novel of the same name.

The novel, Hornby's third, hit the top of the bestsellers' list in Britain when it was first published in 1998. Notwithstanding its literary success, this is just the kind of deceptively simple story that makes experienced Hollywood directors cringe in fear.

Hornby takes the fairly commonplace notions of a wasted bachelorhood and single parent troubles, weaving them into a complex web of the 1990s' pop culture and hippie longings, complete with insightful and hilarious comments on dysfunctional human relationships.

Converting this story into a movie of mass appeal is not a task for the fainthearted. It is even a seemingly impossible task for the directors of this movie, the Weisz brothers, whose previous contribution to cinema was the utterly anti-intellectual American Pie.

Despite their past baggage of simplistic gross out movies and the uphill task presented by Nick Hornby's comic masterpiece, the Weisz brothers have made a movie that commendably portrays the characters in the novel and preserves the pathos that made the original story so alluring.

Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) is a rich bachelor who believes that a hedonistic life devoid of concern for others is an achievement to be savoured every moment. His primary focus is dating unsuspecting women who break off the relationship as soon as they discover his lack of commitment.

Will discovers that dating beautiful single mothers is the key to maintaining a happy romantic life. Towards this end, he even makes up a two-year-old son and joins a single parents' society.

As an unintended consequence, he meets geeky 12-year-old Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), who sees through his deception and teaches him a thing or two about life. Will in turn gives him some lessons in guy coolness.

Marcus' mother, Fiona (Toni Collette), is a hippie liberal who adds to his nerdy image at school by clothing him in atrociously unfashionable clothes and teaching him old-fashioned pseudo emotional songs.

It almost seems as if this story was written keeping Hugh Grant in mind. So well does the role fit the actor's persona and mannerisms. But gone are Grant's usual rapidly fluttering eyelids and the stylish hairlocks partially covering his eyebrows.

The new Hugh Grant has a Euro chic hairstyle and a confident yet vulnerable demeanour that carries his role with effortless ease.

The enormously talented and Oscar-nominated actress Toni Collette is in turn hilarious and heartbreaking in her portrayal of a clueless artsy mother. She never allows her character to become a caricature.

Nicholas Hoult is praiseworthy in his debut role of a dorky preteen. However, he lacks the emotional depth of a child actor like Haley Joel Osment [Sixth Sense, AI: Artificial Intelligence]; his emotional scenes with his mother are not as gripping as his comic camaraderie with Hugh Grant.

About A Boy's greatest achievement is to remain unsentimental while exploring issues of pre-pubescent angst and single parent foibles.

By presenting these issues through an interesting mιlange of charming wit and bittersweet revelations, this movie reaffirms our faith in mature filmmaking.

Perhaps good books make good films, after all.