THE YEAR OF THE CONSERVATIVE FILM:

-REVIEW: of About a Boy (James Bowman)

It may be taking things just the tiniest bit too far that it is by virtue of his interest in Marcus that Will is able to rise to be worthy of Rachel. Shouldn't his re-attachment to the mainland be its own reward? But the right note is struck when we see that even someone as selfish as he cannot quite turn away when Marcus comes to him for help when he fears that his mother may be entertaining suicidal thoughts again. Not that he doesn't try to. "I'm the guy who's really good at choosing trainers" - that is, sneakers - "or records," he says. "I can't help you with real things." But in the end he can, not only by confronting Fiona but also by saving him from his own "social suicide" at school when he volunteers to sing Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly," his mother's favorite song, for her sake at a school concert.

I liked just about everything about this film, right down to the canny choice of singing the worst song in recorded history as the form of social suicide that the boy faces. What's particularly striking though is that--as in Spiderman, Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers, the Two Towers, Ice Age, Stuart Little 2, etc.--what we have here is yet another movie from 2002 which is structured around the notion that the self is an insufficient measure of a man (or mastadon) and that you have to give of yourself, sometimes even sacrifice yourself, to those around you in order to be a worthwhile being. One doubts such a trend will endure, but it's heartening while it lasts. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 16, 2003 10:49 PM