About A Boy Review

With most romantic comedies, no matter how quirky, you can tell in about 10 minutes which girl the guy is going to end up with, or at least narrow it down to two alternatives. That About A Boy doesn't do the standard Hollywood ending, and opts instead for a practical resolution that's almost revolutionary in romantic comedy terms, is reason enough to recommend it.

The fact that Hugh Grant is the guy, though, could be enough to put people off. We're so used to seeing Grant in diffident, floppy-fringed mode, blushing in the presence of an American love interest, it's hard to believe he'd change his stripes. Or his hair. But here it is, the new Hugh: trendy, carefree and floppy fringe-free.

Bachelor Will Freeman (Grant) is happily enjoying a life of purposeless womanising when we first meet him (he lives on the royalties of a Christmas song written by his dad). With his discovery of single-parent help groups, a whole new realm of romantic possibilities is opened up to him. There's a catch though - he has to invent an imaginary son in order to justify his presence at group meetings. Knowledge of this lie comes to real 12-year-old boy Marcus (Hoult), who uses it to blackmail Will into being his friend after his hippy mother, Fiona (Collette), attempts suicide.