Arthur

Directed by Jason Winer

[rating: 3/5]

What’s this? Russell Brand playing a billionaire, alcoholic playboy? Surely not. On the face of it, Brand seems the perfect replacement for Dudley Moore in the remake of the 1980s classic Arthur. Yet, oddly, the comedian’s performance is rather different from the one his tabloid history would lead us to expect.

His distinctive British dandyness is certainly present, but the former drug and sex addict is surprisingly unconvincing as the perennially drunk Arthur Bach. Though some scenes witness his brilliant facial expressions, others are marred by overacting. A bit like that girl at a party who has one drink and then spends the night proclaiming her drunkenness to the world, Brand sometimes tries too hard to appear wild and shocking, whilst the true marks of an alcoholic are missing. Where, for example, are the daily hangovers that would surely result from a diet Pete Doherty would describe as “gin in teacups”?

But I like Russell Brand, and thankfully, that’s the bad bits over with. For the biggest surprise is how nuanced and apt his performance can be when it comes to the more serious, emotional scenes. When the film takes a sad turn towards the end, he is utterly convincing and actually quite moving as the child-inside-a-man’s-body who is painfully pulled out of immaturity by the death of a loved one. Overall then, he does not do a bad job. His best acting does not come where we would expect it to from the scandalous comedian but then, in hindsight, this is not at odds with his past films projects. Compare his far superior portrayal of the sober yet hilariously selfish Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall to his woeful reprise of the role as a now-drug-addicted and hence wilder rock star in Get Him to the Greek.

And to be fair to Brand, neither Get Him to the Greek nor Arthur did him many favours in the scriptwriting department.

Here too, the characters provided by Peter Baynham’s revision of the original script are excruciatingly one-dimensional. Arthur’s future father-in-law (Nick Notle) and fiancé (Jennifer Garner) are particularly remarkable. At least the revamp of John Gielgud’s famous valet Hobson pays off, with Helen Mirren playing the female nanny of the same name in a typically nuanced and subtly comedic fashion. The other impressive performance comes from Greta Gerwig, who has fantastic chemistry with Brand, playing the apparently predictable character of Naomi Quinn with such charm that we cannot help but fall in love with her a bit too.

Theirs is a rather fairy-tale relationship, but weirdly, the film is at its best in such instances of childish charm. Take the antique bowl filled with Lucky Charms on Arthur’s breakfast table, his parade around a “candy” shop dressed as a giant jelly baby, or his magnificent collection of film memorabilia – including a “Robin” suit that his valet Bitterman struggles to fit into and Scooby Doo’s very own “Mystery Machine”.

Indeed, the transformation of Arthur’s love interest from the shoplifter played by Liza Minnelli in the original film to Gerwig’s aspiring children’s writer demonstrates the new tone of this remake. It’s just a shame that, like Brand’s inconsistent performance, this childish charm is so at odds with the adult premise of the film.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfnktrAkdzc