Brilliant and charming together, Chris and Paul Weitz “About a Boy” is hysterical and fun for parents and their teenagers. It is an honest comedy about why it is important to grow up and have a strong work ethic and Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult both are a knockout in this comedy/drama/romance flick.

Will Freeman (Grant) is a lazy man with an easy life who inherited so much money given that his father was famous for writing a song. Since his father’s passing, Will has never worked a day in his life. Meet Marcus: a twelve year old who lives with his chronically depressed mother Fiona (Toni Collette) and does not have many friends at all. Both Will and Marcus want to be happy in their life somehow. Only difference though, is Marcus is practically poor, and Will is really wealthy but does not have to do anything to make money.

As soon as Marcus and Will meet, Marcus starts hanging out at Will’s place twenty-four, seven. They watch shows, go to stores, and horse around consistently. Marcus is doing this though, because he is aware that Will is into dating single moms. Marcus knows that Will is wealthy. Therefore, in Marcus’s hopes, he is praying that Will meet his his mom (Marcus’s) as a single mother and be together with her.

The message from “About a Boy” is that life is not all about setting relationships up. As soon as Will starts to be against Marcus’s idea, he starts to go into detail about why that does not work. Marcus though, has his reasons as well. That all Will does is seek entertainment and live the high life and is not motivated. The film has the right ending though, to the right answers of what to do if people are ever faced living their lives like these two gentlemen are.

Grant is touching in this film. He is known to play the laid-back characters and upper-class gentlemen in most of his movies. In “About a Boy” though, the laid-back characteristic comes back to haunt him.

This film is brilliant and touching to the point where you do not want it to end. Four stars.