Starring Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, Natalia Tena, Sharon Small

(8-Exceptional Film)

Endearing. Witty. Appealing.

Hugh Grant mixes both sides of his persona (the cad and the charming leading man) in his role as Will Freeman, a selfish, childless, responsibility-free adult who gets mixed up with a beleaguered preteen boy, Marcus Brewer (Hoult), and gradually begins to care for him. About a Boy, based on a novel by Nick Hornby, is awfully sentimental, but so consistently witty that it never becomes overbearing. Grant and Hoult, as well as their costars, are excellent and the filmmaking team of brothers Chris and Paul Weitz demonstrate an abundance of style.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

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