A very good movie

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. My wife and I always had a weak spot for Hugh Grant but, let’s be honest, even though the guy always had some great charisma, he eventually has/had a rather disappointing career after all. The main issue with this actor is that he always played basically the same character in countless romantic-comedies. Still, he did make a few very good movies and this one is definitely one of them and he probably gave here his best performance. Indeed, even though he actually played his usual charismatic and womazing bachelor, the rest of the movie was actually quite intriguing. Indeed, in contrary to the other movies in this genre, it didn’t follow a linear structure. For example, in a classic romantic-comedy, the whole thing would have been about a womanizing bachelor trying to score with some single mothers because they might be an easy target. Sure, this concept might sound entertaining but, like all rom-com concepts, it also sounds terribly cumbersome and rather ludicrous. Well, in this movie, fairly early on, the main character himself actually acknowledged the fact that it wasn’t such a good idea after all and simply dropped it which was just so refreshing. Furthermore, even though it was definitely a romantic comedy, it was actually not about the main character finding the love of his life but about how he would find some unlikely connection with some 12 year old boy which was also quite interesting. Finally, it is really rare to see a movie in this genre with some actually fully developed characters. For the Weitz brothers, it is rather hard to believe that they started their directing career just a couple of years before with ‘American Pie’ and they did make a huge leap forward with this movie (unfortunately, they would never manage to reach something so good ever again during their respective careers). Anyway, to conclude, even though it was probably not a masterpiece, I actually really enjoyed the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.