Frankie and Johnny Are Married

From director Michael Pressman comes a deeply intimate and unabashedly comic portrait of a marriage on the verge of disaster: his own. FRANKIE AND JOHNNY ARE MARRIED is a heartfelt romantic comedy about what happens when a husband and wife decide to work together. The result is a translucent window into the drama, absurdity and passion of a real relationship. The story of the movie is based on Michael Pressman and Lisa Chess' rash decision to drop everything and self-finance a modest, equity-waiver production of Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," which is itself a romantic comedy about two lost people finding each other. Michael would direct the play and Lisa would star. It seemed like a great way to energize their marriage, have a little fun and create something meaningful together. The play threw every possible obstacle between husband and wife, including an egomaniacal leading man who became sexually obsessed with Lisa. Yet this most excruciating and absurd experience of their life together surprised Michael and Lisa at the very last minute . . . by turning into something deeply romantic. The resulting film re-creation of their production of the play is rich with layers -- after all, it's the dramatized story of two real people portraying themselves as they create a play about two fictional people who mirror their real lives. But most of all, FRANKIE AND JOHNNY ARE MARRIED is the story of a married couple on the verge of falling in love again.
 
"A bittersweet, wryly amusing 'dramatic fiction.'" -- Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES

  "light and playful, but it's also a hint of this couple's embrace of art and marriage." -- Jules Brenner, FILMCRITIC.COM

"A delightful little sleeper of a love story." -- Evan Henderson, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS