Arthur and Mike ** (2012, Colin Firth, Emily Blunt, Anne Heche) – Movie Review

Colin Firth stars as Wallace Avery, an American man with a job he hates and an ex-wife (Anne Heche) and son who hate him. The solution? He fakes his own death in the sea and assumes a new identity as Arthur Newman to start a new life, only then to hook up with an even crazier woman called Mike (Emily Blunt), a kookie kleptomaniac who has assumed her sister’s identity.

Later Mike even steals a dying man’s wallet (even while Arthur is trying to give him the kiss of life), thus stealing his identity when the cops don’t know who the dead man is. The duo even break into empty homes and take on the identities of the absent owners.

As the two damaged souls begin to connect, they ironically both discover they miss their real identities. How does that even work?

The theme is, if you don’t have a life, get someone else’s. It’s film about identity then, and ironically it has changed its own identity with a title change from the original Arthur Newman. Nothing though can hide the idea that that this is an interesting failure, an honourable curio.

It tries hard to be meaningful but largely fails. And nothing can hide the idea that the two English stars are miscast, not all their huge skills as actors and charisma as personalities. Firth and Blunt could be a great screen pairing, just not in this movie.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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