Arthur Newman Reviews

Throughout Dante Ariola's film, the expressions of the false-identity theme are multitudinous, and about as subtle as Wallace's choice for a new last name.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

For the most part, the film is very basic, a simple drama about the dangers of avoiding responsibility, but there are occasional flairs of eccentricity.

Full Review

A slow, lethargic journey to nowhere, full of pseudo-profound dialogue and generic indie-drama plotting.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

The script of "Arthur Newman," written two decades ago by Becky Johnston, cries out for deadpan anonymity, not the charismatic likes of these two.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

This is a decidedly minor effort, directed by Dante Ariola with a bland, generic eye, missing the pathos of interesting drama and the charm of quality romantic cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Ariola is trying maintain a tricky balance: we have to know Arthur's green-grey world to understand what he's trying to escape from. But unfortunately the man is the movie and movie is wearisome.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

An offbeat, sometimes self-congratulatory road movie romance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Rent "Something Wild" instead. It tells a similar story with style, humor and pathos.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

The promise it begins with doesn't pay off. And while "Arthur Newman" is not a complete disaster, it does leave you wishing the romance and the ride had been a whole lot smoother.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Arthur Newman an intentionally listless story about a boring everyman.

Full Review | Original Score: D

Ariola can't keep the proceedings moving forward, wallowing in the blue mood for far too long. It makes a decent movie with something to share about the exhaustion of defense mechanisms into a slog that leaves its actors high and dry.

Full Review | Original Score: C

One of those many indies that exist to give actors a chance to go slumming.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

It's almost its own genre in indie films: Boring middle-aged man tired of his existence meets up with free-spirited but troubled younger woman. Romance and newfound meaning ensue.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Has two excellent actors on board and not a singular character who feels real as written.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

When Firth first falls into his tattered seductress's game, he changes so violently into the arduous lover, it feels false, an acting exercise, which is all this movie really adds up to.

Full Review | Original Score: C-

Academy-award winner Colin Firth seems to be doing someone a favor by agreeing to play Walter Avery/Arthur Newman.

Full Review | Original Score: C

The film equivalent of a dysfunctional computer sloppily assembled from discarded parts of other machines.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

The generic feel that's been hard-wired into virtually everything that transpires within Arthur Newman grows more and more disheartening as time progresses...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Well-acted but ultimately unmemorable ...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

You'll soon wish the film were about someone a bit more exciting ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5