Cinema
The Nutty Professor (12, selected cinemas)
Fat is funny
Mark Steyn
Call it Eddie Murphy's law: just when it's assumed that everything you do is bound to bellyflop, you manage to get something right. Eddie Murphy, widely written off in Hollywood as a clapped-out Eighties no-hoper with a one-way ticket on the oblivion express, has managed to turn in the season's most likeable comedy.
His vehicle is a remake — of the Jerry Lewis film The Nutty Professor, itself the umpteenth variation on Jekyll and Hyde. In the Lewis version, Jerry played the dork from the science lab who drains the magic phial and is transformed into a smoothly purring swinger — Dr Jerk and Mister Hep. Dating from Jerry's 'Genius' period, the Lewis Professor isn't really a comedy. Rather, Jerry seemed to be exorcising some personal demons still hanging around from his acrimonious split with Dean Martin. In the Martin and Lewis partnership, Jerry wrote all the material, handled all the busi- ness and admin, worked his butt off; Dean turned up, drawled a ballad or two and then went off and pulled all the babes. You could read the Lewis film as a parable of double-acts: in essence, he starts out as Jerry but wants to be transformed into Dino.
At first glance, the Eddie Murphy Nutty Professor would seem to be a crass reduc- tion of the deep psychological currents swirling round the Lewis version: Murphy's Professor Sherman Klump is a 300 lb lard- butt, a wobbling mountain of cellulite, who yearns to be thin; there is an extensive mass flatulence scene. But Lewis, credited on the remake as Executive Producer, must have sensed something more going on. Pro- fessor Klump pines for the beautiful Carla, but, on their first date at a trendy nightspot, the stand-up comic uses him as the butt for all his butt jokes. Humiliated and frustrated, Sherman comes up with a formula that transforms him into Buddy Love, a sleek black superstud in buttock- hugging cycling shorts, with a flashing smile and a tongue so slick other guys don't stand a chance. In other words, he turns into Eddie Murphy. Or, in other other words, the big difference between the Lewis and Murphy versions is this: the Jerry character was Dr Jekyll, the Eddie character is Mr Hyde.
At first, everything's OK. As Buddy Love, Sherman takes Carla back to the club and exacts a ferocious revenge on the comic who'd abused him the night before. It's a Murphy tour de force, culminating in an impromptu rendition of Minnie Riper- ton's 'Loving You (Is Easy 'Cause You're Beautiful)', with the petrified, half-stran- gled stand-up providing the falsetto. Sher- man's thinking is not entirely clear: perhaps, at last, Carla will be his, or any- way Buddy's, or perhaps Buddy can per- suade her of Sherman's inner beauty, encased in blubber though it may be. Or perhaps, as various nightmare recreations of famous motion pictures suggest, Sher- man's real passions lie elsewhere: in one scene, he dreams he's King Kong, rampag- ing through the streets, 20 storeys high, scattering the populace, until eventually he locates Carla, high up in her skyscraper; his pudgy mitt reaches through the window, she recoils in terror, but the hand brushes past her and instead pulls the tiny leg off her roast chicken.
By now, though, it's become clear that Buddy has a hidden agenda in those skin- tight cycling shorts. He wants to take over completely, banishing Sherman forever and keeping Carla for himself. Structurally, Tom Shadyac's film for Murphy is remark- ably similar to the recent Sean Young flop, Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde: in both pictures, the Hyde character sends a video greeting to Jekyll; both pictures come down to a grand finale in which Jekyll and Hyde tussle, with some help from special effects, for control of their one body. But the Murphy version is better: aided by his rubber prosthetics, Sherman is a wonderfully detailed perfor- mance — starting from the fat man's thigh- brushing waddle; he also has great fun playing almost all the other members of the Klump family. But he saves his real vicious- ness for himself: Buddy Love is a withering demolition of the shallow, preening, preda- tory vanity of Murphy's own on-screen per- sona. Instead, Eddie invites us to root for a bumbling diffident sexually introverted but- ter-ball. It's Saul on the road to Damascus, pulling in at a drive-thru Dunkin' Donuts.
Predictably enough, NAAFA (the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance) didn't see it that way. Their spokespersons complained that the film demeaned fat people. When a journal- ist asked if they'd been distressed by seeing the movie, they said they hadn't actually seen the movie, because none of the the- atres had seats big enough. So they've now launched a bigger-seat campaign. Poor old Eddie Murphy. At this rate, professional jokes will soon be obsolete.
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