About a Boy (2002)
Directed by Chris Weitz
Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
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What critics compared About a Boy to
His Jacob is like a slightly younger, and hunkier American take on Hugh Grant’s Will Freeman from the far better “About a Boy.” Exploring the emptiness of the singles scene and what happens with the lady-killer meets his match is a theme that never gets old.
It brings to mind the romantic comedy About A Boy from a couple of years ago, which had a similar scene that managed to be both moving and unsentimental at the same time.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The ex-con-befriends-a-kid plot resembles that of grossly underrated Nicolas Cage/David Gordon Green film Joe , with echoes of About a Boy and Sling Blade .
It’s About a Boy , but the boy is gay.
It employs the female lead and the soundtrack artist from “About a Boy,” whose hero was also named Will, and even borrows the look of the poster for “Love, Actually.”
The film is the latest from England's Working Title production studio, the clever chaps who gave us "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "About a Boy," "Love, Actually" and several Coen brothers films.
And if Brooks' attempts to replicate the magic of "About a Boy" weren't obvious by the end credits, the Badly Drawn Boy song will drive the point home.
Based on the non-fiction book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail, and adapted by excellent screenwriter Nick Hornby (About a Boy, An Education), Wild may offer some inspiration to those who’ve hit the end of their rope and need somewhere to fall, while to others it will feel like a long and predictable list of “carpe diem”-style platitudes.
Nick Hornby’s (An Education, About a Boy) screenplay predictably dramatises conventional themes like individualism and personal growth but Wild is more interesting as a study of gender and femininity.
To hold all these soul-stretching themes together is quite a feat and director Jean-Marc Vallee ( The Young Victoria , Dallas Buyer's Club ) and screenplay writer Nick Hornby ( About a Boy , An Education ) prove themselves up to the challenge.
The screenplay, deft and nuggety, comes from Nick Hornby, the About a Boy writer whose affinity for female-driven stories resulted in the pitch-perfect adaptation of Lynn Barber's '60s coming-of-age memoir, An Education .
Vallee ("Dallas Buyers Club") works from a script by Nick Hornby, whose novels ("About a Boy," "High Fidelity") and screenplays ("An Education") might make him seem an odd choice for this film.
Where “Wild” disappoints is in the didactic, show-and-tell approach of Vallée’s direction and of the screenplay, which, surprisingly, is by Nick Hornby, writer of “High Fidelity,” “About a Boy,” and “Fever Pitch,” and screenwriter of “An Education.”
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Normally, whether it be in a sitcom like The Honeymooners or Perfect Strangers or a movie such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town , The Shop Around the Corner , While You Were Sleeping , About a Boy , and numerous titles involving Shakespearean disguise or Pygmalion -inspired wagers, and even the fantastical varieties like Aladdin , Splash , any body-swap film, it’s a love interest who is most hurt by the secret or lie, after which the lying party must make it up to him or her to set things right.
The script, by Chris Weitz ("About a Boy") and Tony Gilroy ("The Bourne Legacy"), respects the "Star Wars" universe, melding new characters with the familiar in just the right mix.
Although the screenplay credit belongs to Chris Weitz (About a Boy) and Tony Gilroy (the Bourne films), Knoll’s placement emblematizes the film’s true raison d’être: to give us X-wings dogfighting with TIE fighters, stage laser-gun fights, and bust out everything from Star Destroyers to AT-ATs to, yep, a lightsaber.
Screenwriters Chris Weitz (About a Boy) and Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity) — who brought to life the story by visual effects supervisor John Knoll and Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli) — do a solid job creating these new characters.
Written by Oscar nominees Chris Weitz (“About a Boy”) and Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”), the screenplay is a fine combination of dark and funny.
As brisk as effects whiz Gareth “Monsters/Godzilla” Edwards’ direction might be, it’s the crackling script by Oscar-nominated screenwriters Chris Weitz (“About a Boy”) and Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”) that makes “Rogue One” take flight.
The main issue here can be traced right back to Chris Weitz (“About a Boy”) and Tony Gilroy’s (“Michael Clayton”) screenplay, which simply doesn’t give these characters much to do and doesn’t take the time to flesh them out properly.
Unfortunately, director/co-writer Paul Weitz, who previously directed American Dreamz, In Good Company, About a Boy and American Pie, has taken an initially intriguing and imaginative premise and turns it into a meandering, painfully dull fantasy adventure with no fun, thrills or surprises to spare.
The film is crafted from the all-too-familiar coming-of-age tale, but much like 2002’s “ About a Boy ,” the main character isn't an adolescent, but rather a middle-aged man who lives like one.
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The film stars Jared Leto ( Suicide Squad, Blade Runner 2049 ), Matt Smith (“Doctor Who”, “The Crown”), Adria Arjona (“Good Omens“, 6 Underground ), Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”, “Carnival Row“), Al Madrigal (“I’m Dying Up Here”, “About a Boy”), with Tyrese Gibson ( Black and Blue , The Fast and Furious franchise).
Roddy St. James (Hugh Jackman) is a pampered pet rat whose laddish but lonely existence in a posh Kensington Gardens flat is a bit like Hugh Grant’s in About a Boy.