About A Boy (2002)
Another in my series of Christmas movie reviews, About A Boy is based on the book of the same name by Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity. I find it amazing that Hornby managed to create a character in Rob Gordon from HiFi, that personifies what Top Five Reviews is all about, making the meaningless mean the most, while also creating a character in Will (Hugh Grant) in About A Boy, that at one point shouts "I can't help you with anything that means something."
Will is a man that is, well, blank. The most interesting thing about him is that almost fifty years ago his father wrote a Christmas song called "Santa's Super Sleigh" that became enormously popular, & Will just lives off of the royalties. He does nothing (my dream), or to be put more eloquently, nothing meaningful with his life.
After being set up on a date with a single mother, he finds this untapped resource of datable women that he'd never considered before. Single mothers, & where better to find single moms than at Single Parents Alone Together (SPAT), a support group for single parents (duh). Through SPAT he ends up meeting Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) & his mother, Fiona (Toni Collette). & then some other stuff happens that you should really find out for yourself. I can't hold your hand through movie reviews y'know. He also meets Rachel (the stunning Rachel Weisz) later on.
This will probably be Hugh Grant's best performance of his career, but certainly not his most popular, unfortunately. Anyone who doesn't like Grant as a performer should watch him at perhaps his most unlikable. Dammit if you don't just fall in love with that foppish man!
After watching this movie again (& I've like seen it close to a hundred times, if you count all those nights I put it on in the video store because it's so fucking awesome), I have decided to remove Signs from the Skooch Movies Hall of Fame, in order to rightfully honour About A Boy. If you loved High Fidelity, you'll love this movie (& if you didn't love High Fidelity, what the hell are you doing here?). It's so surprisingly excellent, it will rock your socks off & right back on again. From the soundtrack / score, to the camerawork, to the writing to the performances, sheer awesomeness. 5 outta 5, & an inductee into the Skooch Movies Hall of Fame. As a Christmas movie, 4 outta 5.
Roger Ebert's review of About A Boy (2002)