#76: About a Boy

Release Date: May 17th, 2002

Format: DVD (full-screen version)

Written by: Peter Hedges, Chris Wietz, and Paul Wietz

Directed by: Chris Wietz and Paul Wietz

2.5 Stars

This was a decent enough movie. The central theme - “No man is an island” - is interesting twenty-some years after its release. In the voiceover narration of Hugh Grant’s character, Will, he mentions CDs and DVDs and solo lunch outings as an oasis that keeps him uninvolved in the lives of others. The son of a famous one-hit wonder musician, Will lives off the royalties of said one-hit and enjoys his solitary life in his nicely appointed apartment. In his words, he’s starring in ‘The Will Show,’ in which there are sometimes guest stars (mostly a revolving door of casual girlfriends), but he is the only permanent star. 

How many Wills exist in 2024, with Doordash, high-speed streaming media, and dating apps? In 2002, Will was considered a shallow oddity of a man. Now, Will is a way of life for many men.

Like I said, I mostly liked About a Boy. The script (which was nominated for an Oscar), is a monument to Good Script Writing 101. Not a single loose end is left untied, the pacing is impeccable, and all of the emotional moments are well-placed. 

Exposition: check. 

Character development: check. 

Plot lines A, B, and C: check. 

And the movie relies heavily on voiceover narration, both from Will and the titular boy, Marcus, so no worries if the visual storytelling isn’t perfectly pointing you from Point A to Point B in the plot, because one of two narrators will always be there telling you what is happening and how you should feel at any given moment.

The heavy-handed scripting wasn’t enough to ruin the movie for me, but I wish the primary screenwriter, Peter Hedges, would have let the story breathe a little more. That said, About a Boy is a pleasant little movie. 

Addendum: I watched About a Boy on DVD, my second “Mystery DVD” that was a gift from a student for my birthday, and this particular DVD was a full-screen edition. I am well aware of full-screen edition DVDs from my time working at the video store in the mid-2000s. At that time, most TVs still had a 4:3 aspect ratio and lots of morons at the time actually preferred DVDs that cropped the sides of the film so it would fit their stupid square TVs perfectly. What a simple time it was.