Michael Frayn Movies

Adapted from the Tony award-winning play by Michael Frayn, Copenhagen is set in the titular Denmark capitol in the year 1941. According to existing records, it was in that city and year that German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his Danish mentor Neils Bohr met together on the brink of WWII. It will never be known what these two men, so politically divergent yet so much alike in their scientific goals, discussed during that fateful meeting (several attempts to reconstruct their conversation from memory proved both futile and bitterly divisive), though it is a matter of record that both men had discovered the methodology for splitting the atom -- which, of course, was the foundation for the atomic bomb. Frayn's play offers a fanciful yet utterly believable and incredibly witty and charming speculation on the words that might have passed between the idealistic Bohr (played by Stephen Rea) and the pragmatic Heisenberg (Daniel Craig) -- as recalled decades later by the principal characters from the vantage point of the Afterlife. Co-produced by Britain's BBC and U.S. public-TV outlet KCET, Copenhagen was first broadcast as an episode of the PBS Hollywood Presents anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Michael Frayn's frantic West End and Broadway farce makes a literal transformation to the screen in Peter Bogdanoch's faithful adaptation, which is transplanted from the London suburbs to Des Moines, Iowa to accommodate the (mostly) American cast. Michael Caine stars as director Lloyd Fellowes, assigned to bring the successful British sex farce "Nothing On" to the boards in America. In an intricate technical rehearsal, Lloyd puts his cast through their paces -- Garry Lejuene (John Ritter), an obliging feature actor; Dotty Otley (Carol Burnett), a fading theatrical star; Frederick Dallas (Christopher Reeve), a handsome leading man who demands to know the motivation behind every scene; Brooke Ashton (Nicollette Sheridan), the sexy leading lady; Belinda Blair (Marilu Henner), the seen-it-all second female lead; and Seldson Mawbray (Denholm Elliot), the inebriated character actor. The technical rehearsal goes off without a hitch, but as the play travels the country in pre-Broadway performances, the eccentricities of the cast come to the fore and the performances in Des Moines and Cleveland are complete disasters. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

John Cleese's knack for mining hilarity from the growing frustration of a dignified gentleman is fully exploited in the British comedy Clockwise. Cleese portrays Brian Stimpson, a perfectionist English headmaster who has been selected to make an important presentation before a group of his peers. When Stimpson sets out upon his journey, however, he finds himself facing a seemingly never-ending series of delays and inconveniences, which range from missing a train to becoming a fugitive from the police. The film goes no deeper than its farcical surface, but is nevertheless consistently entertaining, thanks to former Monty Python member Cleese's precisely tuned transitions from composure to complete collapse. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi