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Frankie And Johnny Are Married

2004, Movie, R, 95 mins

Frankie And Johnny Are Married: Review

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Veteran television producer-director Michael Pressman's comedy of show-business errors — a lightly fictionalized account of his real-life travails directing his actress wife, Lisa Chess, in a play — is a self-conscious exercise in pop meta-fiction in perpetual danger of slipping into the sticky abyss of Hollywood navel-gazing. The pleasant surprise is that it's often funny and unexpectedly engaging, in large part because Pressman knows better than to ask you to feel too sorry for the fictitious "Pressman" and "Chess." Even they recognize that in the larger scheme of the world's troubles, their problems don't amount to a hill of beans. Pressman and Chess appear to have it all: His career is flourishing, they have a healthy child, a beautiful house and creative, well-connected friends. But beneath the surface lie the usual stresses. Pressman works long hours and neglects his family. Chess, who bears a striking resemblance to actress Helen Hunt, is underemployed and frustrated. So when Pressman finds himself with a break in his busy schedule and a $15,000 tax-refund check, he suggests some creative togetherness. He and Chess have always talked about collaborating — why not invest in a small-scale, limited-run theater production that would let them work together and showcase Chess' underappreciated talents? So they break the first rule of show business and pour their own money into an Equity-waver production of Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and duly pay the price: strained relationships, frayed nerves and some $100,000 when the final accounting is done. Everything that can go wrong does. Their producer (Jillian Armenante) botches everything from the schedule to the poster — the playwright's name is misspelled — the stage manager (Morgan Nagler) is a weepy wreck and the technical director (Maury Sterling) decamps for a more lucrative gig. But their deficiencies pale next to those of Chess' handpicked co-star, old friend Alan Rosenberg (who stands in for a real-life actor Pressman has discretely declined to name). He quickly sheds his superficial bonhomie to reveal a pot-addled beast of an artiste given to such pronouncements as, "I did not become an actor to learn lines." Various friends of the filmmakers, including The Practice creator David E. Kelley, CBS executive Les Moonves and actors Mandy Patinkin, Kathy Baker, Barry Primus and Hector Elizondo (who appeared in the 1991 movie version of FRANKIE AND JOHNNY that starred Kelley's wife, Michelle Pfeiffer) make cameo appearances as their glittering selves, adding to the house-of-mirrors effect. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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