Bean

Mel Smith directs an adaptation by Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll, who also wrote the television sketches. On television Bean moved through unconnected sketches; here he is tied to one plot and one household, and much of the film goes to the holes he opens in the curator David Langley’s home. The second difference is speech: the near silent television character faces a crowd at the climax and gives an improvised, sentimental address, so the comedy is not purely physical. The painting is real: Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, from 1871. In the film an invented Los Angeles gallery, the Grierson, buys it; in fact the French state bought it in 1891 and it hangs at the Orsay museum in Paris. Bean sneezes on it, stains it with ink, reaches for thinner and wipes the face away. Made for 18 million dollars, it took 251 million worldwide, only 45 million in North America. The BBFC rated it PG; the sequel, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, followed 10 years later. A good fit if you accept the sketch character being handed a house, a marriage and a career to wreck. Not for anyone after the television rhythm in which he never speaks, or unable to sit through the aftermath of what he does to the painting.