Hey folks, Harry here with the latest flick that will be starring Hugh Grant. From the sound of it, it seems to be working pretty darn good. I'm a sucker for good films like this one, but ya kinda always need to hear from a wide variety to get a good idea how it'll play. Anyone else?
Hi Harry,
Call me Tochigi-Fin. I've just got back from the first showing of Nick Hornby's About a Boy at the UCI cinema in High Wycombe in good old Blighty.
Well I'll keep this short as it's late and I was selected for a special panel Q&A with some media bigwig execs of some sort sitting behind me.
So how was the film? Well it struck me as a blokey (male) version of Bridget Jones. No surprise there seeing as though it is made by the same producers.
Anyway,on to the plot. Hugh Grant plays Will, a guy living off royalties from his father's christmas song and has never worked a day in his life. He leads a dream existence driving an audi TT ,taking baths, having haircuts and watching Countdown (aChannel4 quiz show for old age pensioners).
He finds that his life is missing something and so discovers that single mothers are his next prey, attending single mother meetings and concocting up a story that he is a single father.
Along the way he befriends a geeky kid, called Marcus through one of the single mothers. They dislike each other at first but after Marcus' mum attempts suicide Will feels he needs to support Marcus and becomes a father figure.
Well that's only half the story and I won't spoil the rest for those who haven't read the book
The film's plus sides are that it is very faithful to the book and there are a number of laughs, the dead duck scene is in there and the scene where Will sings Killing Me Softly whilst playing the guitar at Marcus' school concert is also particularly funny.
The print that I have seen has a temporary soundtrack they even used the jingly bit from True Romance. It definetly needs something kicking as the film was really slow in parts and definetly needs editing.
The casting of Toni Colette and Rachel Weizs (?) was good but their characters are shallow. Colette just cries for the whole film and Weizs is hardly in it and is a bit of a waste.
Hugh Grant is great he extends his role of Daniel form Bridget Jones and becomes the non caring Will and does suit the role, even though I thought he looked a little old and too old for the character in the book.
Now the all important character for me in the book was Marcus and I thought prior to the film that it would make or break the film. I can't remember the kid's name but in the first half hour I thought he'd been miscast. He just wasn't the Marcus I had in mind but he did grow on me as the character develops and his acting becomes acceptable but he's no Jamie Bell (Billie Elliot).
Now the whole films pacing is uneven and appeared at times to be sooo slow; it needs a lot of editing and a good soundtrack.
There were a few noticeable scenes which were completely unneeded and disjoints the film. For example Will sees a ghost of his father in the supermarket, but worst of all was a scene where Will has a dream about Colette with a gun to her head which was completely unnecessary.
So all in all, a good film - 7/10 but with editing and a decent soundtrack it could turn out to be one to rival Bridget Jones and will do no harm to Grant's career.
Cheers
Tochig-Fin
