Russell Brand steps into Dudley Moore's shoes in this remake of the 1981 comedy, but it's Peter Cook's embarrassing Hollywood career that Peter Bradshaw is reminded of
This frankly depressing film is an atonal symphony of wrong notes. British comedy star Russell Brand takes the lead in a joyless, unobservant remake of the 1981 hit, which had Dudley Moore as the lovable millionaire drunk in Manhattan, endangering his fortune and lifestyle by falling in love with a penniless woman of whom his family disapproves. It won John Gielgud a best supporting actor Oscar as Arthur's droll manservant and another for its sugary theme song ("When you get caught between the moon and New York City ?").
You only have to watch this one for a few minutes before you realise that it isn't Moore that Brand resembles here, but Peter Cook ? specifically, Cook in his unhappy 1980s era, cast as a posh British butler in the shortlived American sitcom The Two of Us. The analogy doesn't hold entirely: Cook conspicuously failed to break America, and Brand is a smash-hit success there. But there is the same Hollywood way of getting an imported Brit comedian utterly wrong; the same way of failing to understand the subtly ironic style and playful mojo of a great performer, and instead forcing him into a naff, tourist template of Britishness.
It is almost eerie to see how the funny has been removed from Brand's performing style, leaving only the loopy, cheery, hyper-articulation. In one scene, Arthur irrepressibly buys Abraham Lincoln's top hat at auction and clowns around in the streets wearing it. It's an American president's hat, but it's what this film's producers imagine a top-hole Brit might wear anyway. Actually, Brand looks as if he's conducting some sort of voodoo funeral.
What's more baffling is that the screenplay is by Peter Baynham, a whip-smart writer who worked in British television with Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris in the 1990s, before establishing himself in Hollywood and working on Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat and Br�no films. The system appears here to have squeezed the life out of him, and suit-wearing execs must have been leaning on this script.
In this new version, Arthur has a long-suffering driver called Bitterman; the name may be a joke about being resentful, but there's nothing in the script for Luis Guzm�n to work with. Instead of having a male butler, however, Arthur now has an exasperated nanny who has looked after him since he was a child. Why? Because he's basically adorable.
She is actually a "supernanny" like Jo Frost in the TV show, which has gone over well in the States. It is an unintentionally creepy, embarrassing, infantilising idea, and the indignity of this chillingly unfunny role is bravely borne by Helen Mirren. Arthur's domineering mother, Vivienne, is played by Geraldine James, and she threatens to disinherit our hero, unless he gets married to a suitable woman: a joke-free, ball-breaking bitch played by Jennifer Garner. Her industrialist dad is Nick Nolte, who telexes in a performance of palpable detachment and contempt.
Things go wrong when Arthur falls in love with free-spirit Naomi, played by mumblecore star Greta Gerwig. Just as with Brand, though in a different way, the movie's casting directors have utterly failed to understand the talents that brought this performer to their notice in the first place. Gerwig's gentle, complex style is here reduced to a kiddie-ish single note ? quirky, asexual and unthreatening. Like Arthur, she is stuck with an icky and infantilising tic, living with her dad. For some reason, she conducts her own very unlikely, uninteresting and unofficial wacky tours of Grand Central Station, and yearns to be a children's book illustrator.
The absolute low point comes with a racist crack about Barack Obama. British matriarch Vivienne sneers at the "coffee-coloured" president, and Arthur feebly objects that "you can't say that". Oh yes you can ? if you're a cardboard Brit! Because it's the sort of thing those meanie uptight Brits do, you see, like wearing monocles and drinking tea. There's no way on earth an American character would be made to say it. Or if this did happen, it would be a very different sort of film ? a dark thriller or drama and the person saying it would probably die in a hail of bullets. But this sort of racism is OK for a comedy Brit.
Now, of course, there is racism in Britain, but there is here no real intention to satirise it and, in any case, specific racist resentment of Obama is an American thing, not a British thing. All of us Brits who have grown up avidly and gratefully consuming American movies and TV have become used to the way that country's affectionate enthusiasm for Britain ? Jon Stewart memorably called us "America's deadbeat older brother" ? sometimes tips over into tiring condescension. But for this condescension to include a racial joke about Obama left a very nasty taste in my mouth.
All that's left for Brand fans is to put on the DVDs of his live shows to remember what a great comic he is. (Somewhere, I have a copy of his tremendous, off-the-wall BBC4 documentary about Jack Kerouac.) For fans and non-fans alike, however, this new Arthur is one to miss.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr/21/arthur-review
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