“About a Boy” (1998) by Nick Hornby is a coming of age novel that has been turned into a movie directed by Paul and Chris Weitz in 2002.

Book:

The story takes place in London, 1993 and has two main characters: Will, a 36-year-old bachelor and Marcus, an introverted twelve-year-old boy. Will characterizes himself as a shallow person, doesn’t have a job, gains money from the copyright of a successful christmas hit that his father wrote and likes being on his own. Moreover, Will does not enjoy commintements, so he decides that he should only date young and pretty divorced mothers. This is why he enters the SPAT, a group of divorced parents that try to support each other. Will pretends he has a two-year-old son, Ned, and that his fictitious ex-wife has cheated on him and left with his best friend. In this way, he manages to enter the group and meet a single mother he is interested in, Suzie.

In one of the SPAT meetings, Will meets Marcus, the son of Suzie’s friend Fiona. Marcus is self contained, gets bullied by his classmates, lives with his depressed mother and his family is broken apart. After the ending of the SPAT meeting, everyone returns home. This is when Marcus finds his mother almost dead due to her suicidal attempt. Suzie and Will call the ambulance and Fiona finally manages to stay alive. However, her depression is not over and this event causes Marcus a fear of being left all alone in the world. This is the reason why Marcus is trying to avoid returning home early and thus, visits Will’s apartment without being invited and finds out that Will has made the whole story with Ned up. At the beginning Will is frustrated that he is no longer left alone, but after some time creates a friendship with Marcus. Also, Marcus manages to make another friend, Ellie, a punk anarchic 15-year-old girl, who is a big fan of Kurt Cobain.

In the meantime, Will lets everyone know that he made up the story of being a divorced and abandoned father and he falls in love with Rachel, a single mother with a son called Ali who is the same age as Marcus. So as Will to attract Rachel, he initially says that Marcus is his son, but later he reveals her the truth and has a relationship with her. After this event, Marcus gets informed about the fact that his dad, who lives in Cambridge with his new girlfriend, has had an accident and demands to see his son as he claims to have “a big think” about the meaning of his life. So, Marcus asks Ellie to accompany him to his trip to Cambridge. However, the day the two of them were planning to start their trip coincides with the day Kurt Cobain killed himself. Although everything seems to be fine in the beginning, Ellie starts to drink alcohol, gets off the train and smashes with her boot a shop window that depicted Kurt Cobain, as she thought that the owner was trying to gain money from his dramatic ending. The two children are taken under arrest and end up at a local police station. Then, Marcus’ father, his girlfriend, Fiona, Ellie’ mother and Will arrive at the station and manage to set them free after a big commotion.

The story ends a few months later, when everything is finally fine, with Will having a relationship with Rachel and a strong bond with Marcus and Ali, Fiona being much more willing to enjoy her life and Marcus having eventually a good relationship with his family.

Film:

The film depicts the vast majority of the events that are described in the novel, but for the trip of Marcus with Ellie to Cambridge. Instead of this final event, a completely different one is described in the film. Firstly, when Will lets Rachel know that he is not actually the father of Marcus, they break up. Moreover, as Fiona experiences depression’s ups and downs all the time Marcus decides to enter a rock competition at his school and sing the song “Killing me softly” just to make his mum happy again. This is when Will decides that he has to help his friend so as to not get embarrassed in front of everyone. Therefore, Will gets on the stage with Marcus and sing the song together, with Will exaggerating so as to become the center of attention and save his friend. In the meantime, Rachel is part of the audience of this competition as Ali takes part in it as well and she comprehends that she should give Will a second chance.

Book Vs Film:

Although the movie is based on the novel, the two works of art manage to handle the topic in different ways and create various feelings. The themes they handle were considered taboos (suicide, divorse, etc) especially during the 90’s but today as well. Even though the book includes many sarcastic events, I would personally describe it as a drama. On the other hand, the movie adaptation is completely different due to the fact that it is clearly a comedy, with many bittersweet and drama elements.

Taking everything into consideration, I personally enjoyed the movie more as it handles taboos with mastery, wittiness and humor. At the same time, I maintain that Hornby achieved to create a book worth-read as it includes a well-crafted, interesting and innovative story, well-developed multidimensional characters and a thrilling way of writing. In my opinion, the best way to enjoy both works of art is to firstly read the book and secondly watch the film!