About a Boy: Critic Reviews

The movie occasionally strains for crowd-pleasing moments as it pumps up the drama toward the end, but it more than earns our indulgence.

Few movies have made better use of Hugh Grant's shallow charm and amused befuddlement than this funny and well-paced adaptation of Nick Hornby's best-selling second novel.

Pleasant and engaging, rather than laugh-out-loud funny or emotionally involving.

Like Billy Wilder with a British bent, "About a Boy" lithely dances around uneasy comedy - attempted suicide, fragile kids of divorce, childhood bereft of memorable experiences. But it never trivializes them, emphasizing life's quality over its quantity.

Grant grows a heart in Hornby-book pic; teens+.

Predictable but entertaining.

The first big studio movie of 2002 I didn't want to end.

More successful as a Hugh Grant vehicle than as a Nick Hornby adaptation.

For a while the movie has lots of laughs, and a fun Christmas theme besides.

Admirably lacking in sentiment, this is a comedy-drama with a steady supply of laughs.

Hornby's crises and characters can be so facile, schematic and smugly moralistic that emotional substance can get overshadowed by fluff.

touching, sweet, and sentimental without ever being sappy or cloying

This movie is about people talking, making decisions, and growing from their experiences.

that it'll probably be the best and most mature comedy of the 2002 summer season speaks more of the season than the picture

Hugh Grant can act! Who knew?

Both Grant and Hoult carry the movie because they are believable as people -- flawed, assured of the wrong things, and scared to admit how much they may really need the company of others.

The movie's message is sweet and charming, but it's presented so cynically it doesn't seem saccharine. Unquestionably, it's a breakthrough for directors Chris and Paul Weitz, whose first feature effort was American Pie.

It's well-timed, it'll never bore you and the film's close is comic humiliation par excellence.

Hugh Grant is best when he sticks with roles that let him be a lovable cad - exactly the sort of character offered to him in About a Boy.

A thoroughly engaging, surprisingly touching British comedy.

Comedy about a boy, a man and their very different lives is sharp, sweet and surprisingly winning.

That rare beast, a decent British comedy, thanks largely to a terrific comic performance by Grant.

A pleasant enough -- if slight -- comedy.

The talents of Mr. Hornby and the Weitz brothers converge in the ability to make even life's worst moments good for a laugh.

Witty, enormously enjoyable comedy romp that hits home just as often as it tickles the funny bone.