Rating: 
Summary: You got to love him!!!!
Review: I just love Hugh Grant...and just about every movie he is in!!! And About a Boy is no different. This movie is funny and touching and everything you have come to expect from Hugh Grant himself. When Will (Hugh Grant) decides he will meet women through a single parents group, his plan all but backfires on him. But a kid, Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), takes to him and decides to start hanging out with him all the time, despite Will's objections. They become close and Will becomes an important person in Marcus's life.
I won't give away the ending as so many people do in these reviews, but I will say go see it. Provides lots of laughs and you get to see Hugh Grant as you did in Bridget Jones Diary. Highly recommended!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A Turn for Hugh Grant makes for a Touching Funny Comedy
Review: Hugh Grant changes his usual shy-guy attitude to a cunning bachelor who befriends a 12 year old boy and learns an important life lesson in About a Boy. A great supporting cast and very funny, touching moments make a great date movie. Hugh Grant plays a shallow bachelor who decides to turn his sights to single mom's, so he fakes having a child to get women. He then befriends a boy who's mother trys to commit suicide and then somehow has to have him over everyday and teach him about being cool. Not one of the best but still worth your time.
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Summary: When does this come out on DVD???
Review: This was a hilarious film. Hugh Grant was excellent in the part of Will Truman and Marcus was played wonderfully by (actor?). I absolutely loved the scenes of Will and Marcus watching Countdown together! I can't wait for it to come out on DVD!!
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing
Review: The Weitz brothers have a great feeling for British author Nick Hornby's books. Their production of High Fidelity was wonderfully watchable. And the same is true of this film. Hugh Grant (who ranges from awful--in Sirens and Mickey Blue Eyes--to terrific--Bridget Jones's Diary) turns in a finely tuned performance as the happy slacker who presents himself as a single parent to get next to women. His evolving relationship to Marcus (Nicholas Hoult who is, happily, not any sort of typical kid) and his emotionally fragile mother, Fiona (a nicely rendered performance by the hugely gifted Toni Collette of Muriel's Wedding, The Sixth Sense, and a slew of other films) is amusing and believable and touching--without any maudlin nonsense. The script has no flab; the editing's good and clean, and the kids in the cast are, without exception, entirely real and human. This is an eminently worthwhile and watchable film.
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Summary: The Life of an Island-Dweller
Review: Let's face it. Hugh Grant is the essence of charm, but his resume includes more than a few clunkers. This movie is no clunker.Grant plays a dedicated bachelor living the seemingly idyllic bachelor life. He lives off the trust fund from the royalties of his father's one-hit wonder about Santa Claus' Sleigh, and he lives in high style. He has every toy any boy could dream of having. He has resolutely committed himself to a life of self-indulgence and one-night stands. And he is *happy*, or at least so he firmly believes. As About a Boy opens, Grant hits on the happy notion that single mothers are particularly grateful about his attentions, and conveniently disinclined to embark on a serious relationship. So he invents a son, joins a group for single parents, and unexpectedly finds himself entangled in the lives of a suicidally-depressed single mum, and her very nerdy son. The son (played by Nicholas Hoult) wages a campaign to befriend Grant, and the unlikely relationship changes them both. Grant has the suave exterior that would attract any woman's attention, at least until she had talked to him for five minutes. Hoult, on the other hand, is anything but suave. But unlike Grant, he has a drive for making things happen and an essential honesty. As any economist would tell you, there's an obvious mutually-beneficial trade to be made here. The movie works out that trade to its necessarily happy conclusion. But along the way, it takes enough twists and turns, and makes enough good observations about what that trade is really all about to raise this film above the usual "feel good" type of movie. The final scene of redemption is not the one you would have imagined. The film is full of witty commentary, especially in the monologues (by both Grant and Hoult), and it offers a nice rebuttal to the myth that toys are the point. At the end of the day, it's not the greatest movie ever made, but it certainly is fun. A cut above the usual summer fare. And did I mention that Hugh Grant is charming?
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Summary: The Sacrificial Nature of Love
Review: Wow. It is really rare that I go to a movie theater and am really really moved by a movie, but About a Boy did move me. The movie is truly wonderful. I love the concept. The movie is about Will who is a total, shallow cad. He comes up with a scheme to meet women in a single parent support group. He ends up meeting a twelve-year-old boy named Marcus. Since Will is basically a twelve-year-old himself, and Marcus is in need of a friend; so the two can relate, and they form a friendship. The rest of the movie illustrates the character development the two have gone through as the two continue their very interesting friendship, and Will and Marcus branch out into other real relationships. I've really not captured About a Boy well in this review, but that is how the best movies always are. About a Boy is totally wonderful. Hugh Grant is in his best role, and the rest of the actors are superb. There is a lot of humor and emotional charge. There is great depth (particularly in the "crucifixion" scene) as the true sacrificial nature of love is revealed. About a Boy is a totally satisfying experience for all types of viewers.
Rating:
Summary: A cad learns some important lessons about life.
Review: In the best performance of his career, Hugh Grant shines as Will, a professional slacker who lives off the royalties from a cheesy Christmas song that his father wrote in the 1950's. Will whiles away his days watching television, getting his hair done, playing pool and dating beautiful women. In a sudden revelation, Will comes to realize that single women with children are needy creatures who would be most grateful for his attention and who would demand little in return. Therefore, Will invents a mythical child of his own and joins a group of single parents. Unfortunately for Will, he also meets Fiona and Marcus, a pathetic mother and son who are needier than most. Fiona is self-centered, and worse, she is suicidally depressed. She dresses Marcus in nerdy clothes and she smothers him in front of his peers. Marcus is strange, sensitive, frightened and badly in need of friendship and guidance. Will, in spite of his determination to remain an island unto himself, becomes involved with Marcus and he begins to care about this lonely boy. Hugh Grant is a revelation as a likable cad who very slowly comes to realize that his life until now has been a total waste. It occurs to him that if his existence is ever going to mean anything, he will need to start caring about someone other than himself. "About a Boy" is hilarious, tragic, outrageous, poignant and painfully, intensely human. The screenplay, direction and cinematography are all first rate. Nicholas Hoult as Marcus is outstanding. It is not easy to play a homely pre-teen without seeming unbearably pitiful, but Hoult gives his character both pride and intelligence. The rest of the cast is equally fine. If you want an antidote to all of the formulaic movies about superheroes, soldiers and spies that are flooding the theaters these days, treat yourself to one of the best pictures of 2002. "About a Boy" is winning, entertaining and thoroughly charming.
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Summary: Redemption
Review: This is about the best film I've seen since Harold and Maude. The producer's ability to bring full circle two lives and in opposites from how they appear in the opening few moments is superb. Collette is marvelous and believable as an excentric, depressed single Mumm. There were so many opportunties when the Director could have taken this into such the wrong direction and didn't. If you are looking for a film which will leave you re-newed and inspired, this is it. This is worth a trip to the theatre.
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Summary: Instantly Redeems Hugh Grant for all those bad movies
Review: Of the three Hornby adaptations I've seen--High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, and About A Boy--this one is probably the most enjoyable, although it perhaps doesn't have quite as much depth as High Fidelity. As soon as it began I forgave Hugh Grant on the spot for Sense and Sensibility, The Englishman..., and all those other movies where he bumbled and stuttered. This is a performance reminiscent of his work in Bridget Jones' Diary, and as good as that in An Awfully Big Adventure. He is suitably shallow, self-consciously good-looking, unapologetically self-motivated, and deeply insecure. Moreover, it is a joy to watch his relationship with young Marcus, (Nicholas Hoult) develop into a skewed father-son type friendship. The supporting cast is led by three appealing actresses: Toni Collette as Marcus' manic depressive "daft hippie" mother, Rachel Weisz as Grant's ideal match, and Victoria Smurfit as an unsuccessful date who introduces the 40 year old boy to the 12 year old. While Hoult is generally very convincing as Marcus, the best child performance is by Augustus Prew, as Weisz's jealous son, who is by turns hilarious and threatening. The Weitz brothers direct very well, with surprising subtlety, and the use of "Killing Me Softly" as the films unofficial theme song is just classic.
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Summary: Mad About Hugh!
Review: When I oringally saw the preveiws for About a Boy I knew it was going to be awful since the directors other films Bridget Jone's Diary and Notting Hill were terrible as I like to put it.Then I heard that it was good and I decided to go and see it.Expecting an extremly bad and terrible film the ending of the film proved to be a sad experence for me.I enjoyed the whole thing.There was not one scene that I found useless.There was no dragging in the movie,the plot was good,the outcome was good,the acting was good.It was just a perfect film that I am definaly going to buy when the DVD comes out. ENJOY!
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