About a Boy film review
Will Freeman (Hugh Grant; – Bridget Jones’s Diary) is enjoying his rich, meaningless life, living off of his dad’s Christmas song as a bachelor who lives in London. He is a lazy, self-centred man who thinks about no-one but himself. Will is a player; he joins a single parent group called SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together). He goes to these meetings and ends up going on a date. She has to bring her best friend’s son called Marcus Brewer (Nicholas Hoult). When they get back to Marcus’s house they find Marcus’s mother; Fiona (Toni Collete), unconscious on a sofa after a suicide attempt. Fiona recovers and Marcus realises two people is not enough. Marcus calls up Will and arranges them to go to dinner.
Marcus starts to follow Will and finds out his doesn’t have a child. Marcus starts coming to Wills; watching television and they become friends. Marcus and Fiona spend Christmas and New Year’s with Will. At the SPAT group Will meets another woman called Rachel. She believes Marcus is Will’s son and he plays along. He then realises where he went wrong and he tells her and he realises what he is. Fiona starts to cry before Marcus goes to school and he worries for her, and before she had told him, his voice makes her happy. He decides to sing at a school concert to make her happy. The next part is for you to find out. Will invites some people around his flat for Christmas, and Rachel is there.
This film was directed by Paul and Chris Weisz; they directed American Pie. About a Boy is quite similar to that film. Also it was written by Nick Hornby who also wrote the book High Fidelity. He has turned lots of books into films and has had his novel published in 1998: Fever Pitch. The music was written and performed by Badly Drawn Boy, Damon Gough, Nick Hornby asked him to provide music for the entire movie. Hornby believes his music had the power to enchant and change people.
The main themes of this movie are; Growing up (changing), Consequences of suicide, Family & Friends (Love), Responsibilities, Relationships, Truth & Honesty and Single-parents.
The scene that really stood in my mind is when Marcus commits social suicide where he sings ‘Killing Me Softly’ for his Mum to make her happy. Will convinces Fiona to go and watch, and Will drives her up to the concert. Marcus had paid a boy in his school to play with him, but he wouldn’t play so Marcus goes out on stage himself; Can Will Stop Marcus from singing? The audience claps Marcus onto the stage and then he starts to sing and they laugh at his face is shown by a close-up on him and zooms out changing from time to time. Will comes onstage playing a guitar and plays backup. When they finished Will carried on playing the guitar expressing his, weird but funny, feelings. Rachel notices Will is not just thinking about himself for a change. This compares with the theme of changing people as Will used to think about nobody but himself but now he thinks about helping Marcus. This gives the effect that people can change if they really try to.
If you wanted to make the film better, I feel that you wouldn’t have to change that much. The thing I would change is the music should be varied, as the same style of music and get repetitive. Most films do not always have the same genre of music in. Other than that, I do not have any other criticisms. This is a really brilliant film and I could watch it over and over again.
