By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * * )
You can count the reasons this shouldn't work. There's the book: Nick Hornby's third novel appears to repeat his first two — thirtysomething male faces early midlife crisis.
There are the films: Fever Pitch was a trite version of the first, and
High Fidelity, transported to America by John Cusack, was rather more style than the substance of the second. Then there's the star: Hugh Grant plays Brit-twit, yet again, and is expected to carry the film.
Well, it scores on all three counts. It's amusing, entertaining and unashamedly feelgood. And Grant is better in this than anything he's done previously.
He plays Will, nearly 40 but in no hurry to settle down, who doesn't work because his father wrote a Christmas hit years ago and he lives off the royalties.
When he dates a single mother, he realises he has found a pool of women who will be so happy that he takes an interest in them and their children that he will never have to worry about being pressured to commit.
Will figures the best way to meet single mums is to pretend he is a single dad. He invents a
2-year-old son, Ned, and attends a meeting of SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together) and lands a date with solo mum Susie.
But when Susie introduces Will to Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), son of her friend Fiona (Toni Collette), his plot unravels. Marcus follows Will and works out that he is no father.
• DVD features: movie (101min); deleted scenes; outtakes; making-of feature; Santa's Super Sleigh feature; two Badly Drawn Boy music videos. Interactive features: scene access; trivia game; interactive menus; karaoke; text/photo galleries.
