Sixty Six / About A Boy (DVD)

Double bill of films about childhood. 'Sixty Six (2006) is a coming-of-age comedy starring Greg Sulkin and Helena Bonham Carter. It is the summer of 1966, and England is about to be consumed by World Cup Fever. For 12-year-old Bernie (Sulkin), the biggest day of his life is looming - his Bar Mitzvah, and the day he becomes a man. However, Bernie's family are increasingly distracted by the threat of losing their business and their wayward older son, and the scale of Bernie's Bar Mitzvah diminishes daily. Worst of all the World Cup Final is scheduled to take place on the same day and when England makes it through to the final, Bernie's longed-for Bar Mitzvah looks set to be a complete disaster. In 'About A Boy' (2002), Hugh Grant takes the lead role as aimless, commitment-shy, thirtysomething Will in this adaptation of Nick Hornby's bestseller. Living on the royalties of a hit song his father wrote 40 years ago, Will drifts through life, moving from one relationship to the next with little lasting effect. But when he hits upon the new idea of dating single-mothers, he soon finds himself entangled with the suicidal Fiona (Toni Colette) and her 12-year-old-son Marcus (Nicholas Hoult). As he and Marcus gradually develop a friendship, Will begins to reassess the selfish life he has been living.