About a Boy

This topic contains:

• details about About a Boy’s classification and consumer advice lines
• extract from the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) decision about classification
• a review of About a Boy completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 6 August 2002.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

Extract from the OFLC decision about classification

Synopsis

Comedy-drama about the friendship between Will a 38 year old man of leisure and Marcus, a 12-year old boy with problems at home and at school. While Will helps Marcus to become acceptable to his school mates, Marcus inspires Will to accept reality and start putting time into other people.

Reasons for the decision

In the Board’s opinion this film warrants M classification in accordance with Part 5 of the Films Table in the National Classification Code, as it cannot be recommended for viewing for persons who are under 15.

In accordance with film classification guidelines, the film warrants an M classification as it contains adult themes and language that are considered to be potentially harmful or disturbing for those under 15 years.

Adult Themes

The treatment of adult themes is discreet and the impact is not high.

Marcus, a 12-year-old boy, has problems at home and school as a result of being the son of the frequently depressed and at least on one occasion suicidal single mother, Fiona.

At 23 minutes, Marcus, Susie, Susie’s infant daughter and Will, arrive at Fiona’s house to find Fiona lying unconscious with traces of vomit around her mouth. At 25 minutes, after an ambulance has taken Fiona to hospital, Will implies to Marcus that Fiona, has attempted suicide by asking, “You’re afraid she might try again?” At 26 minutes, Marcus finds a letter while tidying house, and at 28 minutes this is revealed to have been a suicide letter to him from Fiona. At 42 minutes, the above discovery of Fiona’s attempted suicide is briefly repeated.

At 11 minutes Marcus watches his mother sitting despondently in tears. He again finds her in tears at 74 minutes. At 75 minutes, preoccupied at school, Marcus’ voice-over runs “I don’t know how to help my mum”. At 76 minutes Marcus tells Will that his mother has been crying all day At 81–82 minutes Will tells Fiona not to try to commit suicide again.

Language

There are two uses of ‘fuck’ language, at 42 and 50 minutes.

YMA review

This review of the movie About a Boy contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• material that may disturb young children
• sexual references
• coarse language
• the movie’s message
• overall comments.

Synopsis of the story

Will Freeman is living his life ‘as an island’. He has no responsibilities or ties and his only motivation in life is to find women to sleep with on a strictly casual basis. His income is derived from the royalties of a one hit wonder song his father wrote about 40 years ago. In order to meet single mothers, whom he sees as a good potential source for sex, he joins a single parents’ support group inventing a two year old son. There he meets Christine who introduces Will to her friend Fiona and son Marcus.

Marcus turns Will’s life around by showing him how vain and empty his life really is. Marcus befriends Will against Will’s wishes by visiting him daily after school. Marcus sees Will as the father figure he longs for and hopes will go out with his mother. Fiona is a music therapist/hippy who suffers from depression. One day after Will goes on an outing to a park with Christine, her son and Marcus (where Marcus accidentally kills a duck) they return to Marcus’s flat to find Fiona, slumped on the sofa having attempted suicide. She survives but this leaves a lasting impression on Marcus who only wants his Mum to be happy.

Marcus is also bullied at school because he is a little different and Will helps him to ‘blend in’ more with the others by buying him a cool pair of trainers. Will comes to realise that Marcus is the only person he has ever really cared about and this changes him from being a totally self absorbed, vain person to a more likeable, humane one and the boy helps the man grow up.

Material that may disturb young children

• Attempted suicide of mother. Marcus arrives home to find his mother slumped on the sofa with vomit all over her.
• Marcus throws bread at the ducks and accidentally hits one (not actually shown) but the dead duck is shown floating upside down. This is actually in a comic context but might be upsetting for some children.

Sexual references

There are quite a lot of sexual references in this film as Will is always trying to get females into bed although they are mainly verbal references not visual. Will talks about single mothers as being available for passionate sex. Marcus also likes a girl in the film and Will talks to him about sex although not in much detail.

Coarse language

There is frequent low level coarse language as well a couple of uses of the word fuck. Other words used frequently include bloody, Jesus Christ, God, shit, sod, sodding, crap, bugger, piss, bastard, asshole and shag. In addition Will makes crude comments such as he’d “rather eat a dirty nappy” and might as well “cut my own penis off”.

The movie’s message

The main theme of this film is that “no man is an island” and that people really do need other people to make their life worthwhile.

Values that parents may wish to encourage include:

• the importance of friendship
• endurance through adversity
• responsibility and the consequences of a lack of responsibility
• the ability to be different
• resilience.

This film portrays many values that are harmful and hurt others, showing them to be ‘bad’ such as:

• selfishness
• lack of empathy with others
• use of women for casual sex
• bullying
• having to conform to be accepted.

Overall comments

This is a film that adults would enjoy. It is a funny yet sad look at human characters and the acting by Hugh Grant and Toni Collette as well as Nicholas Hoult is superb. The story line is quite unusual and goes to the heart of human nature. The interaction between Will and Marcus is very touching and is what makes this film so unique.

Although there is little in the film that would disturb young children, the is really only suitable for children over the age of 15 as the rating suggests.