Main Cast: Lisa Chess, Michael Pressman, Alan Rosenberg, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jillian Armenante
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
Plot
Successful television director and film producer Michael Pressman sets off with high hopes when he decides to helm a film production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. He believes the experience of directing a film starring his struggling actress of a wife (Lisa Chess) will be a fun and relatively easy way to revitalize their marriage. Unfortunately, the decision to cast Alan Rosenberg to play Johnny proves disastrous -- Rosenberg is incredibly difficult to work with and Pressman's already tense relationship becomes steadily worse as the horrific rehearsal and filming process intensifies. The situation looks bleak when, after a devastating preview, Pressman is forced to shut down the play, relinquish his investment, and possibly lose his wife. Of course, the aggrieved director has one option: to take over the role of Johnny. The stakes have never been higher for the married couple, considering their future together appears to hinge on the final outcome of the film. Frankie and Johnny Are Married was directed in real life by the protagonist, Michael Pressman. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
Review
Frankie and Johnny Are Married is not an attempt to remake Garry Marshall's 1991 film Frankie and Johnny. In fact, that version of the Terrence McNally play and numerous other real-world entities, including the TV show Chicago Hope, are all referenced in this self-reflexive movie from writer/director Michael Pressman, who plays himself as one of the central characters. That the movie is about a bored producer and his struggling actress wife -- and that this is who Michael Pressman and Lisa Chess really are -- just hints at the ambitious conundrums that would have buried a lesser film. Frankie and Johnny Are Married handles them deftly, with never a false note, and with an hilariously self-deprecating performance by Alan Rosenberg, playing himself as an egotistical SOB who squashes underlings, fails to memorize his lines, and consistently misunderstands character motivations. Pressman's story jumps off from his own life experiences as a financially compensated but artistically unsatisfied producer of Chicago Hope, and the film even features cameos from a handful of the show's actors. From there, it launches into the decision to stage Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune, and the result is a movie whose creators thought it might jump-start them, about a play whose interpreters thought it might jump-start them. Again, this is all very convincing and funny, the delicate balance preserved marvelously, and since it's shot on digital video, it feels almost hyper-real. There's a juicy irony in that the movie turned out about as disastrously as Pressman's initial staging of the play, as it went unheralded and virtually unseen. The main difference being that the play depicted in the film was a true flop, while the film itself is a little gem that slipped through the cracks. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Morgan Nagler; Ann Hearn; Maury Sterling; Linda Klein
Credit
Jeffery Passero - Casting, Daniel Irom - Co-producer, Van Broughton Ramsey - Costume Designer, Daniel Irom - First Assistant Director, Michael Pressman - Director, Jeff Freeman - Editor, Michael Rafferty - Editor, Lauren Hersholt-Nole - Production Designer, Jacek Laskus - Cinematographer, Alice West - Producer, Rob Nokes - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael Pressman - Screenwriter
