Full confession: I have not seen the original 1981 “Arthur”. “OH MY GOD, a movie Jason HASN’T SEEN?” Wait wait wait. I have seen the 2011 remake with Russell Brand and from what I can surmise the two movies follow the same formula: a belligerent and wealthy playboy has to learn to live without money if he wants to marry the woman of his dreams. The 2011 film oozed sentimentality and I think that had more to do with Brand’s personal struggles at the time (and his subsequent Producer credit on the remake) then it did a changing of the times: it doesn’t matter how much money either Arthur has, because eventually you will run out of things to do with it. No amount of modernization can change this, and sadly makes Arthur’s rich boy antics irrelevant; especially when there have been so many movies since about the 1% acting like idiots (The Hangover series; Blank Check; Wall Street 2; Fracture, to name a few). But where Brand’s characterization had a pathos when confronted with responsibility, Dudley Moore’s original really is only concerned with having a good time. The guy is a fucking useless drunk, and he’s an asshole! There could very well be more lurking beneath the surface of his interpretation, but Arthur 2 never gives us a chance to learn more about him: why he’s a drunk; how he feels about getting older and still not taking control of his life; his lack of confidence at middle age. Answering these wouldn’t make for a very funny movie, though (and there’s a good chance they were answered in the first one and I simply don’t know what I’m talking about. I have the sequel, not the original. I have to work with what I’ve got here).

At the end of the day, these films are comedies. And Brand’s really wasn’t that funny. Maybe it depended more on your mileage for Brand’s -ahem- “brand” of comedy, because his personality shone through the fiction in the same way Moore’s shines through this. I think Dudley Moore is hilarious (no more so then with his frequent collaborator and fellow-deceased Peter Cook, RIP to them both) and his Arthur is a fumbling, bumbling, mumbling mess of an alcoholic: constantly shaking; on the verge of passing out; slurring his words and joking about everything that isn’t tied down. Some of the humour, then – including an early scene with his butler that is as mean-spirited as you can get for an 80s comedy – is quite cruel when you start to wonder if it’s just his lashing out from some kind of trauma. Maybe it really is as simple as him never having to live under a microscope and so becoming a kind of flaneur where he doesn’t feel culpable to anyone or anything. I’m sure there are rich kids (and even rich adults) out there who live like this: how everyday, everywhere is Disneyland. But like I said: Arthur 2 is not concerned with the inner-workings of any of its characters; only with what will keep the plot moving. Take the scene where Arthur is late for dinner with his long-suffering soulmate Linda, played by Liza Minnelli; I understand they are meant for each other and their communal camaraderie is supposed to counter the woman he left her for: an obsessed socialite who can’t let him go. But Arthur is piss-drunk when he arrives and Liza does her best with her always-expressive face, communicating a “not again” sort-of vibe, but it is forgotten in favor of a more convenient plot engine in her sterility. An opportunity missed, then. Moore has expressed that his Arthur is based on his comedy partner Cook’s real-life drinking but it can’t all be surface-level imitation, and it certainly can’t carry a whole movie.

Moore is still funny, though. And he’s a good match for Liza, who shows up presumably for a paycheck but puts in just as much effort as she always has. Shakespearean-trained John Gielgud – who won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his butler in the first movie – returns for a glorified 10-minute cameo despite a starring-credit; presumably for the money. Let’s face it: this came out 7 years after the original. It was all for the money. Even the plot echoes that of the original, making it more of a “continuation” then a proper sequel with forward-momentum: Arthur’s ex father-in-law forces him into a bum-deal where he loses all his money unless he ditches Liza and remarries his own daughter instead (Arthur’s ex father-in-law’s daughter, not Arthur’s own daughter; although THAT would be a movie). Along the way, Moore and Liza work to adopt a child (despite their difficult circumstances), communicating with an agency worker played by a pre-menopause Kathy Bates! Whadda babe. Special mention should also go to Barney Martin (Jerry’s Dad on Seinfeld) who plays Liza’s Dad with the same Jewish-flavoured panache. And that’s really what tied Arthur 2 together the most: the odd cute moment here and there, filled-in with what audiences “loved” about the original (Moore and Liza; the Gielgud appearance; conventional plot beats in Liza’s self-blame and Moore wandering the streets like Mel Brooks in Life Stinks). It’s all concluded with the old “file folder full of crucial information” trick that puts an end to Arthur’s blackmail and wins him his fortune back. What was the point of all that, then? Isn’t everyone just back to where they were at the START OF THE MOVIE? Was ANYTHING learned at ALL? Well yes: they learned not to make another one. And we probably won’t see a sequel to the Brand one either now that it’s been almost ten years. Why couldn’t the movie have been about Arthur deciding to give up the drink, and ACTUALLY having to go to meetings instead of “suggesting” that he tried going and gave up? Wouldn’t that help his family more than his colossal failure of holding down a “real” job? Wouldn’t that be good for the adoption, too? Oh well.

//jf 3.21.20

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