Arthur Review: Best That You Can Do? Seriously?

“When will my testicles get some rest?!” Arthur exclaims halfway through his eponymous film that finds him, in this particular moment, riding bareback on a horse after getting his crotch manhandled by his future father-in-law.  I feel a special kinship with Arthur because I, too, felt like my testicles were being pounded into oblivion throughout most of Warner Bros. tedious, by-the-numbers remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore vehicle.

The story of Arthur finds a billionaire playboy (Russell Brand) landlocked by arrested development and a family fortune large enough to rebuild Iraq ten times over. Arthur likes having fun and spending gobs of cashola to maintain the good times, which is further fueled by his out of control alcoholism. Surprisingly, the film addresses this within seconds of it starting, something that its marketing shamefully shied away from. Emotionally estranged from his mother, but still the heir to their company’s fortune, Arthur has been raised and is taken care of by a live-in nanny named Hobson (Helen Mirren). So detached is Arthur from his mother Vivienne (Geraldine James), that he greets her at a rare meeting with a prickly, “I remember you from when I used to live in your womb.” On this occasion, Vivienne has called Arthur to the office to declare an ultimatum; shape up and help the family business save face by marrying similarly affluent corporate heir Susan (Jennifer Garner), or be cut off from the family and its liquid finances forever. Coincidentally, Arthur’s attention fully adjusts to Naomi (Greta Gerwig), a blue-collar-ish breath of reality whom Arthur falls for, and he must then decide for himself what matters more- wealth or real love.

Despite the pedigree of talent on screen, the collective simply cannot win against the sad hollowness of the film’s remake status. Oddly, the biggest problem is that it simply is not funny. It is, in fact, so unfunny that when Brand attempts to vamp and improv his way through scenes, you can clearly tell and it doesn’t feel organic, merely forced. The film more or less follows the same beats of the original, to diminished results mostly because the bar has been set so high. The biggest tweak to the story is probably the biggest issue with the entire film in that the character of Arthur has been quietly aligned closer to Tom Hanks’ Josh Baskin character in Big, a child trapped in a man’s body, only this one has all the toys. Whether this was done to assist Russell Brand with some major heavy lifting, or simply a studio note is anyone’s guess, but it creates a noticeably uneven tone to the film that you can’t ever quite shake. And despite what the interwebs might say about the original, Moore’s Arthur was not this. He liked having dumb fun to escape his life’s emotional trappings, sure, but he never would have dressed up as Batman. The gem of Dudley Moore’s performance of Arthur is that he imbued the character with a quiet darkness percolating underneath the drunken buffoonery. As funny as he is and as fun as he is to be around, you can’t help but feel sorry for his self-destructiveness, which is really what it’s like to be around any alcoholic. This is a critical character trait that is all but removed from Brand’s interpretation until the closing moments of the film when it is all but necessary in order to achieve some sort of emotional resonance. Not to put blame on him; Russell Brand is totally likeable, if not a little cloying, and presents the best alternative take on the character without totally replicating Moore’s performance. All the more irresistible is Greta Gerwig, who possesses all the adorable, fun-loving traits of Arthur, only balanced by the reality-check that is life. Any guy would be lucky to fall into her illegally guided tour of the city.

Strangely, for most of Arthur’s runtime, I couldn’t help but think that a much better starring vehicle for Brand would have been an adaptation of his My Booky Wook, which in reality is not too far off the mark from the general story and characterizations of Arthur, minus a billion or so dollars in personal fortune, and would obviously be much better suited for the comedian than attempting to stand alongside a previous actor who became synonymous with the role.  The other minor success of the film is in its soundtrack, featuring new music from Mark Ronson, who seems to have been on a non-stop roll for the last two years, and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. The film’s iconic song “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” covered by Fitz and the Tantrums is iffy, but the aforementioned artists make strong contributions regardless.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. and IMDbPro