I wish I had some nicer things to say about this film.
I truly love the original. And I don’t think that a remake has to be a bad thing. And I don’t think that the issue of alcoholism is now so taboo that we can’t have a laugh.
But there is a tone deafness to this film that is tough to overcome. Russell Brand is both a major cause and a major victim. In the original film, the alcohol was an excuse for childish behavior. Obviously, it was a defense mechanism for Arthur. It was freed him up to be a guilt-free truth teller. Brand’s brand is childishness with an emphasis on private hairy parts. Really, you could have eliminated the alcohol altogether in this story, since with the exceptions of a few scenes in which Brand tries to ACT, you can’t tell if he is supposed to be drunk or sober.
Much more concerning to me than whether a drunk is funny in 2011 was our relationship with wealth and fame in 2011. “Arthur” is not an unusual character in our 2011 lives. Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Mel Gibson, England’s princes, the really stupid housewives of wherever. If Arthur Bach was a real person, he’d be bouncing between Page Six, E!, and Bravo. The question is whether THAT guy is loveable… and if so, why?
I was perfectly willing to go with a female Hobson instead of a male. But the idea of making her his nanny is, I think, exactly the opposite direction in which this story needed to be taken. A social secretary or even his publicist of long-standing makes more sense to me, in the curve of this conceit. What worked so brillaintly in the original’s relationship between Arthur and Hobson was that Hobson was basically over it, whereas Mirren’s Hobson, however caustic, has truly devoted her life to this man-child, even giving up a chance at her own happiness. Ew. Yes, Hobson turns out to deeply care for Arthur. But like Brand playing drunk… we were there with that idea before the movie even started.
Why has Jennifer Garner’s character turned into a nasty predator? It’s not funny. And it’s kind of misogynistic, really. Garner is game as hell and doesn’t restrain herself. Gutsy. But it doesn’t work.
Have women stopped wanting to fix broken men? That was the role in the original. You actually felt bad for the girl. Here, she is as much a predator as the overt gold digger who keeps looking for a souvenir to take home from Arthur’s bedroom.
That leaves Greta Gerwig’s Naomi, a fake tour guide at Grand Central. Hmmm…
Again, they flipped tone. Gerwig, who i think shows the chops to be a “regular” movie star here – she’ll choose what she wants to spend her time doing – plays a character who is so winsome here that she is more like a playmate for the boychild than she is a slap of fresh, but caring air for him. Arthur’s going to be grounded by a fake tour guide? In the end, this is a tale of an eccentric who matures by meeting an eccentric. Hmmm…
In the original, the grandmother – who doesn’t exist here – really cares about whether Arthur grows up… for Arthur’s sake! Here, the mother only wants her business empire to continue when she retires.
The film dies by half measures. It’s as though the screenwriter, Peter Baynham, wanted to modernize this tale, but didn’t want to engage the cynicism of the era, except for making the women who are supposed to care for Arthur into C-words and the women who either have no stake at the start of the film or aren’t supposed to be that invested into saints.
As simple an idea as giving Arthur’s behavior a specific intent would have helped the film immeasurably.
There are few things more frustrating than sitting in a film with an idea you already like and a cast you really like and watching it all add up to so much less than the sum of its parts. Sigh…
