About A Boy Analysis

About A Boy is the story of a pessimistic, immature young man named Will who is taught how to act like a grown-up by a twelve year old boy named Marcus. Will is a 38-year-old bachelor who prides himself on being "cool". His lifestyle is all thanks to royalties from a successful Christmas jingle that his father wrote. Will does not need to work to maintain his laidback lifestyle. He spends most of his free time, or units as he calls them, smoking, watching television, getting his hair cut, and reading.

In the opening of the movie and periodically through the movie Will makes comments and quotes about men being islands. Will is quoted saying, “In my opinion, all men are islands. And what's more, now's the time to be one. This is an island age.”

As time goes one you see Will start asking personal questions and trying to dig into the mind of Marcus. Farther on in the movie Marcus comes rushing to Will’s house with other boys chasing him and throwing items at him. Will, trying to step in and make Marcus feel better, takes Marcus shopping to buy some “cool” shoes as an attempt to get Marcus to fit in. This shows a new side of Will. This caring side slowly comes out more and more especially toward the end of the movie showing Will’s concern with Marcus’s social wellbeing.

At the end of the movie Marcus comes home and finds his mother crying on the couch and goes to Will to just talk and confide in. However, Will shoots down Marcus and the two get into a fight. Marcus in that moment realized that to make his mother happy he had to sing at the school concert, accepting social death and

He said, "...there was only one thing that meant something to me. Marcus. He was the only thing that meant something to me. And Fiona was the only thing that meant something to him. And she was about to fall off the edge." Will rushes to Marcus’s home looking for them and sees that Fiona is at a SPAT meeting. Will rushes to and crashes a SPAT meeting and pleads Fiona not to commit suicide again. She reassures him that she has no plans to do it. This shows that the change is starting to set in Will and he is starting to see that a man cannot be alone forever.

Fiona tells Will that Marcus is going to sing at the school concert and the two rush there to stop Marcus from committing social suicide as I had mentioned before. At the concert, Will sees Rachel, his recent breakup, in the audience as her son is performing in the show. Will makes his way backstage in an attempt to stop Marcus from going on. Marcus refuses and says, "My mum wants me to sing it. It'll make her happy." He then proceeds to sing an out of tune and horrifying cover of "Killing Me