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There are three boys in our household — Alex,
10; Nathan, 7; and Grant, a far-too-sophisticated 3-year-old. My wife and I
do our best to filter out the many offensive and violent video games,
movies, and television shows that litter their road to adulthood. Although
we do our best, these forms of entertainment are far too prevalent for us
to shield them from completely, and despite our best efforts we find that
Alex knows far too much about pro wrestlers and their trademark moves for
comfort, that Nathan is a bit too crafty when it comes to killing
video-game aliens, and that Grant’s vocabulary is much saltier than
we’d like. So it comes as a bit of surprise that they’ve
taken such a shine to Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean. Having seen them
laugh uproariously at the trailer to the eccentric British comic’s
latest — and reportedly last — feature, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, I’ve
prepped them for the film by introducing them to the English television
series that introduced the character, as well as the first feature film, Bean. The result: peals of
unbridled laughter, requests for repeat viewings of the programs, and the
opportunity to show them the work of other great physical comedians (Buster
Keaton, here we come!) once they’ve gotten their fill of Bean. The boys and I were pleased with Mr. Bean’s Holiday, though it
is a bit of a subpar effort from Atkinson. The absence of his original
collaborators, Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll, is perhaps one reason,
and the possibility that it’s time to put the character out to
pasture is another. After all, you can only get away with the
slipping-oyster-off-the-half-shell gag so many times. The plot, such as it
is, provides Atkinson the opportunity to run Bean through a series of
physical gags, some of them inspired, some of them tired, that hark back to
a far more innocent brand of comedy. Bean has won an all-expenses-paid trip
to France, and casting this innocent abroad is nothing but a recipe for
disaster. Be it destroying a businessman’s computer with a spilled
cup of coffee on a high-speed train that’s traveling through the
Chunnel or innocently making a man miss his train, he’s oblivious to
the chaos he creates. Bean finds himself caring for a young boy who’s
separated from his father, and their odyssey from Paris to the Cannes Film
Festival is a series of accidents, miscommunications, and mayhem. Although
the film is a wildly inconsistent affair, there are more than a few
highlights that make it worthwhile. A prolonged sequence in which Bean
pursues a chicken that has his bus ticket stuck to its foot provides an
ever-larger payoff, and his commandeering of the projection room at the
film festival, where he innocently improves on the work of narcissistic
director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe), finishes the movie on a high note.
However, the scene in which Bean and his young charge pantomime a scene of
despair to a Puccini aria as a way to collect spare change is the
film’s highlight, effectively combining classic physical comedy with
a degree of pathos. I’m not sure whether the tear in my eye was from
laughter or the sympathy that Atkinson evoked. Although Mr.
Bean’s Holiday will never be labeled a
classic, it is a wonderful example of the sort of film comedy that’s
in danger of going the way of the dodo bird. Amid the spate of comedic
movies that rely on vile bodily functions, coarse language, or awkward
sexual moments to generate laughs, the innocence in Mr. Bean’s Holiday is a
welcome respite and an unexpected delight. Because he’s allowed our
kids to be kids and given me the opportunity to experience a sense of
innocent glee as well, I can’t help but thank Atkinson for allowing
Mr. Bean to visit us one last time.
This article appears in Aug 23-29, 2007.
