About a Boy (Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult)

We first saw the film ‘About a Boy’ in 2009, so it seemed like a good idea to watch it again. I remembered that Hugh Grant played a young man, and that the story was about him and a twelve-year-old boy. But that was as far as my memory went.

Grant’s character Will is a young man who likes to be alone, and is mostly self-sufficient in a technological 21st century way. He’s not a hermit, exactly, but believes that, contrary to John Donne’s famous quotation, he is quite happy to live as an island. He enjoys a steady stream of casual romantic relationships, which he breaks off as soon as the woman concerned starts to become too serious.

Will tries to organise his life into half-hour segments, and keeps insisting that he’s very busy. He lives on the royalties from a popular Christmas song that his father wrote many years earlier, and watches a lot of television. He’s unmotivated, and frankly selfish - but also likeable and (deep down) kind-hearted, in a way that Hugh Grant portrays extremely well.

One day Will realises that his ideal short-term partner is a single mother. So, with the dubious aim of infiltrating a group of single parents (mostly mothers) he invents a two-year-old son called Ned. He finds one of the mothers quite attractive, and arranges to meet her, not expecting that she will turn up with twelve-year-old Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the son of her neighbour (and friend).

By this stage in the film we have also met Marcus, in a separate storyline. He and his mother are radical - almost hippy - vegetarians, and Marcus has never worn trainers, or listened to modern music. He finds school education boring, and is increasingly bullied. His clothes are old-fashioned and geeky, his mother still walks him to school, and he has a strange habit of singing aloud without realising he is doing so.

Marcus also has the burden of knowing that his mother suffers from depressive incidents. He’s old for his years, and an incident that could have been tragic forces Will to become involved with Marcus. Marcus realises that, far from wanting to live alone, he needs more than one person around him. If there are just two people who are everything to each other, he decides, then there’s nobody left if one of them falls out of the picture. So he tries, for a while, to persuade Will to date his mother…

There’s a lot of low-key humour in the film, which contrasts well with the serious themes of bullying, abusive relationships, and clinical depression. Grant is ideal for Will’s character; his facial expressions and sense of timing are excellent. I was less sure about Nicholas Hoult as Marcus, at first, but his character grew on me; perhaps the actor was somewhat typecast at the time (as it would seem from the ‘making of’ documentary that is one of the extras) but he was only twelve when the film was made. He doesn’t have particularly good screen chemistry with anyone, but that suits the role he is playing perfectly.

The other characters are less significant. Marcus’s mother Fiona (Toni Collette) didn’t seem entirely believable to me; but she represents a particular type of person quite well. And since we’re seeing people from Will’s point of view, perhaps this was deliberate. The women are divided into those he finds attractive, and those he doesn’t, in a somewhat caricatured way.

It’s more thoughtful than the average comedy, but more amusing than many films that look at deeper themes. There’s some bad language but mostly used as expletives when someone is surprised or stressed; we didn’t find it excessive. There’s a lot of discussion about sex in general, but without specifics; and there are no scenes of intimacy or nudity at all. The rating of 12 (PG-13 in the United States) is appropriate, given that Marcus himself is 12, although I doubt if anyone under the age of about 14 or 15 would be interested in it.

Recommended.

The film was based on the book ‘About a Boy’ by Nick Hornby.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's DVD Reviews

First Do No Harm (Meryl Streep and Seth Adkins)

We have decided to re-watch some of the DVDs we last watched around ten years ago. Last night we decided to see ‘First Do No Harm’, which we first saw in May 2009. Meryl Streep stars, so we knew the first time around that it would be worth watching, despite being a free DVD from a relative’s weekend paper.

We remembered, when we put the film on last night, that it was based on a true story. It was made for TV in 1997 as a drama documentary, but it’s so well made, and so moving, that we were totally caught up in the story.

Meryl Streep is Lori, a mother of three children, and happily married to Dave (Fred Ward). They have a teenage daughter, a son of about twelve, and a younger son, Robbie (brilliantly portrayed by Seth Adkins). We see them as a normal, happy American family who have just acquired a horse.

Then Robbie has an unexpected fall at school. Nobody worries too much, but later that day he has a kind of seizure. He’s taken to hospital, and diagnosed with epilepsy. Apparently there was quite a stigma attached to this illness - I still don’t know why - but he is in a private hospital, at first, with helpful doctors who discuss the options with his parents.

Initially Robbie is put on the most commonly used drug but the side effects are terrible, so the hospital switches to something else. Then the parents discover that there’s a problem with the medical insurance; Robbie is moved to a state hospital, where the doctor in charge is not at all warm or friendly.

It’s a terrible indictment on US medical care, and we weren’t very impressed with what we saw in either of the hospitals, although the nurses were all excellent. We were shocked at the way the doctors seemed to be in charge, not giving Robbie’s parents all the relevant information, and expecting them to sign forms for quite dangerous treatment.

Lori is convinced there must be another way… and after extensive reading, she finds anecdotal evidence of the ketogenic diet. This was known as early as the 1920s but was not widely acknowledged. The last part of the film involves Lori’s fight against the medical authorities, trying to take Robbie to this treatment rather than agreeing to brain surgery.

It’s a powerful film, partly due to the subject matter, but also because the main actors are excellent. Seth Adkins was only ten when this film was made but already a professional and competent actor. Robbie is supposed to be younger than that (perhaps six) and changes from being a lively, friendly boy to an angry and boisterous one. He has increasing seizures of different kinds, and at times is shown as unable to do anything much, due to the cocktail of drugs. At no point did the acting seem forced or unrealistic.

It’s a very intense story; I didn’t watch some of the rapid action in the hospital scenes, but for most of the film I was almost glued to the screen, unaware of time and rooting for Robbie.

The only jarring note - so to speak - is a screechy rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ while Lori is researching epilepsy, day after day, in the library. While the sentiments of the song work well, and a musical interlude makes sense to cover the time spent, where there is no dialogue and no action, the later part of the song was quite painful and distracting.

However it’s a minor gripe in an excellent, thought-provoking and educational film.

The UK rating is PG, which seems right to me; other than mild innuendoes there's nothing that would cause the most prudish to cringe. However it's rated PG-13 in the US, probably due to the intense and possibly disturbing nature of the story. I would not want to show it to anyone under the age of about eleven or twelve for that reason.

Highly recommended, particularly to anyone with any experience of epilepsy, or who would like to know more about the ketogenic diet as a possible treatment.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's DVD Reviews

Yours, Mine and Ours (Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo)

We were fairly tired, and wanted something light-hearted and undemanding to watch. We hadn’t seen ‘Yours, Mine & Ours’ for about ten years. Having checked my previous review, I am puzzled as last time we apparently saw the original 1968 version with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. Perhaps we saw it at someone else’s house and then bought the more recent version for ourselves.

The story appears to be the same, although if we previously saw a different version, that would explain why it didn’t feel at all familiar. Dennis Quaid is the rather militant admiral Frank in this version, which was produced in 2006. He was widowed a few years before the story opens, and runs his family - with eight children - in a highly structured naval fashion. They move regularly, and are rather fed up of constant changes, with new accommodation and schools to get used to.

Frank is contrasted with the bohemian designer Helen (Rene Russo) who is also widowed, and has ten children: six of them adopted. Her household is somewhat crazy, but there’s a lot more affection and fun than appears to be the case in Frank’s home.

It turns out that Frank and Helen were high school sweethearts, although they had lost touch many years earlier. They bump into each other when they are both out on dates with other people, and they get together at a high school reunion cruise.

The bulk of the film follows events when the two families move in together, to an abandoned lighthouse which needs a great deal of renovation. There are inevitable clashes; Frank produces schedules and structure, Helen encourages free expression and creativity. The children don’t want new step-siblings but their battles - some of them quite amusing, with cleverly choreographed slapstick scenes - only serve to draw their parents closer to each other, albeit worried about the future.

It’s predictable in an overall sense, of course, but it’s nicely done. It manages to feel a tad dated despite the teenagers having cell phones, but most of the humour is timeless. Some of it is a tad extreme, which is probably why this film has a PG rather than U rating. I didn’t notice any profanities, and there are no scenes of nudity or adult intimacy, other than a little kissing now and then.

There’s nothing deep in this film, and the extras aren’t particularly interesting, but it made a good evening’s undemanding viewing, with a few places where we laughed out loud. We didn't get to know any of the children individually and I had forgotten all their names by the time the film ended; there are four teenagers, and some young twins who are perhaps five, as well as all ages in between.

Recommended if you want to see something light-hearted - and unless you are very particular, there’s nothing unsuitable for children.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's DVD Reviews