FilmBlather.com

"I was the star of the Will Show, and the Will Show wasn't an ensemble drama."

Some movies deserve the name "crowd-pleaser" whereas others merely aspire to it. It requires more than the systematic surfeit of the audience's lowest-common-denominator instincts, which can be instantly effective, but rarely memorable. A real crowd-pleaser will play not only with a viewer's eyes and adrenaline response, but also the brain, and the emotions. It will make us believe in it, then care about it, then invest more of our feelings in it than we may care to admit. "Crowd-pleaser" isn't an insult, it's the definition of cinema.

There aren't, alas, too many movies that fit that definition. I just returned from Men in Black II, a movie that wants to do nothing more than entertain, but fails because it seems to have little more than a mega budget to work with. About a Boy, which hit theaters just a few short weeks earlier, surpasses it in nearly every category with the exception of "worms." And those who are thinking that I'm nuts for comparing a movie about a grouchy middle-age guy who takes a liking to a kid to a movie about a top-secret government agency that protects the earth from aliens are off the mark.

For what are both films if not unadulterated escapism, with their highest ambition being to entertain you, make you forget whatever else is going on in your life at that moment? They take different approaches to the same problem, and while I won't dwell on why MIB II fails, it is both interesting and surprising how About a Boy succeeds.

The movie, a far cry from directors Paul and Chris Weitz's last effort, Down to Earth, tells a story we all know. Will (Hugh Grant) is a man with a dream: a dream never to work, never to marry, never to form any significant emotional attachments to anyone in his life. He supports himself very comfortably with the royalties from an awful but very popular Christmas carol written by his father. He makes the discovery that single mothers make terrific dates, easy to charm into a bout or two of casual sex before leaving by the wayside. To that end, he begins attending single parent support groups, making up a baby son to get his foot in the door.

One of these single mothers is the suicidal Fiona (Toni Colette). He is not the least bit attracted to her -- the object of his affection is actually Rachel (Rachel Weisz) -- but circumstances make them meet anyway, and her ostracized, jaded son (Nicholas Hoult) gets the idea that the two of them should date. In the meantime, Will becomes a belated, reluctant father figure for Fiona's son, regularly saving him from bullies who chase him down the street pelting him with hard candy.

I love the way Hugh Grant plays with his befuddled Brit image. In just about every movie he has headlined, he's done little but mumble and bumble, putting on his lovable clueless face and milking his archetypical happy-go-lucky Brit accent for all it's worth. He still does all of this in About a Boy but he gives it a disconcertingly nasty twist, a can't-put-your-finger-on-it mean streak that goes beyond the grinchy dialogue he's given. It's not a great peformance, but it's an interesting one.

The story itself, of course, is predictable as sin, but what's surprising is how unsentimentally the movie treats it. There are none of the teary monologues you would expect, and the finale, which involves a school talent show is more bizarre than it is cloying. You must admit, in any case, that "Killing Me Softly" is a weird choice for the Big Song.

The movie is touching because it's not to sweet, and funny because it doesn't try too hard. It's a crowd-pleaser. That's what it is.