Movies Reviews

Arthur – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Apr 8, 2011, 14:23 GMT

Irresponsible charmer Arthur Bach (Russell Brand) has always relied on two things to get by: his limitless fortune and the good sense of lifelong nanny Hobson (Helen Mirren) to keep him out of trouble. Now he faces his biggest challenge--choosing between an arranged marriage that will ensure his lavish lifestyle or an uncertain future with the one thing money can\'t buy, Naomi (Greta Gerwig), the only woman he has ever ...more

It is alarming that a charming, funny and essentially winning movie character would be an unapologetic drunk in 2011.  We know the damage alcohol can cause to an individual, his circle and the world at large especially when he gets behind the wheel of a car. 

And yet Russell Brand’s character is a celebration and glamorization of such a person - he’s filthy rich and pleasant so that apparently makes it all better.

A tough casting conundrum considering the above, but Russell Brand may be the best possible choice – he is well liked, it is already accepted that he is outrageous and a single film wouldn’t destroy his career.  George Clooney could never do this part and retain his carefully protected integrity.  

Even so, Brand’s outrageousness is toned down for a PG 13 audience. 

As in the 1981 Dudley Moore version, a do-nothing rich man, in arrested development, will lose his inheritance if he doesn’t marry a woman who will cement the families’ business ties. 

Arthur rails against the condition, but agrees to marry the cold and calculating Susan (Jennifer Garner) because he can’t live without the wealth that has netted him so much useless stuff and privilege.  

However – he meets a woman he can love (Greta Gerwig), a free spirited but economically challenged tour guide, and begins to ponder a future without money - just walking away from his wealth.  He’s nothing if not a man of extremes.

The balm on all of this is Helen Mirren’s Hobson, Arthur’s long suffering but loving nanny who does her best to bring him to earth and help him lead the best possible life in the framework of what he was born into.

Mirren’s adorability is hard to mask behind cool efficiency as she tries to guide him, and yet images of her firing off sub machine guns in Red kept popping into my mind.

At the other end of the female spectrum here is the bitch goddess mother and the bitch goddess fiancée.   These are despicable characters who take advantage of weak willed Arthur who snarl and bray at him to get him to do their bidding. Boo.

The film is a throwback to those sex comedies of the 60’s and 70’s with a smirking view of women.  They show up in Arthur’s bed a lot and he wears errant bras on his head more times than I could count. 

He is the perennial bachelor of that era with little regard for anyone but himself, frightened of female authority figures and seeking something in all his conquests.  Still it’s is couched in the innocence of those films, and tinged with sweetness and optimism. 

And ironically, the films nostalgic view of those past sex comedies is also its undoing. We are more aware of the dangers of alcohol and more inclined not to act out within all the leading man’s cross addictions.  Despite the film’s shortcomings, I think this Brand character has a future in entertainment.

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35mm comedy
Written by Peter Baynam, Steve Gordon
Directed by Jason Winer
Opens: April 8
Runtime: 110 minutes
MPAA:Rated PG-13 for alcohol use throughout, sexual content, language and some drug references
Country: USA
Language: English