''Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence'' (released in the United States as ''The Very Thought of You'') is a 1998 British

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typic ...

directed by

Nick Hamm Nick Hamm is a film, television, and theater director and producer born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He won a BAFTA for his drama ''The Harmfulness of Tobacco'' starring Edward Fox. Hamm's most recent films, '' The Journey'' starring Timothy ...

and starring

Monica Potter Monica Gregg Potter (née Brokaw; born June 30, 1971) is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles in the films ''Con Air'' (1997), ''Patch Adams'' (1998), and '' Along Came a Spider'' (2001). She also appeared in the horror films ...

and

Joseph Fiennes Joseph Alberic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes (), known as Joseph Fiennes, is an English actor of film, stage, and television. Journalist Zoe Williams observed that "he seemed to be the go-to actor for English cultural history". Fiennes is particul ...

. The screenplay by

Peter Morgan Peter Julian Robin Morgan, (10 April 1963) is a British screenwriter and playwright. He is the playwright behind '' The Audience'' and '' Frost/Nixon'' and the screenwriter of ''The Queen'' (2006), '' Frost/Nixon'' (2008), '' The Damned Unit ...

focuses on the chance meeting each of three childhood friends now living in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

has with an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

tourist.

Plot

Fed up with her dead-end job with a

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origin ...

car rental A car rental, hire car or car hire agency is a company that rents automobiles for short periods of time to the public, generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks. It is often organized with numerous local branches (which allow a user to ...

agency, Martha quits, cashes her final paycheck, and uses the money to purchase an airline ticket to the least expensive international destination she can find – London. At the airport, she meets Daniel, a successful music label executive, who covertly arranges for her to be upgraded to First Class and seated next to him on the flight. When she sells the ticket to another passenger and Daniel finds his seatmate is an obnoxiously loud woman instead of the girl of his dreams, he moves back to the

Economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

section and takes the vacant seat next to Martha. Before landing in London, he offers her the use of a deluxe suite in a luxury hotel at his company's expense in exchange for a lunch date the following day. Through a series of flashbacks and

flashforward A flashforward (also spelled flash-forward, and more formally known as prolepsis) is a scene that temporarily takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards a ...

s, we learn Laurence, a former

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

champion who now teaches the game to wealthy women, went to the airport to pick up Daniel but missed him because the flight landed early. Instead, he literally runs into Martha, who hits him with a luggage cart while searching for the exit. She coerces him into taking her into the city and invites him to the suite for dinner. While she is in the bathroom, a bouquet of flowers from Daniel is delivered to the suite, and when Laurence sees the attached card, he departs without explanation. The following day, Martha meets struggling actor Frank, who has fled an

audition An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performer. It typically involves the performer displaying their talent through a previously memorized and rehearsed solo piece or by performing a work or piece giv ...

in a panic and has gone to the park to console himself with a half-bottle of whiskey. Having heard about her from Daniel, he realizes who she is and calls Laurence to boast that he is about to make her his conquest. He takes her to a nearby art gallery. Martha slips away and heads for the exit, where she reunites with Laurence, who was looking for the pair. He invites her back to his flat and she accepts. Torn between loyalty to Daniel and love for Martha, Laurence seeks advice from Pederson, a neighbour he mistakenly believes is a psychiatrist, in the early morning hours. In the interim, Martha awakens and seeing a photograph of the three friends, assumes she has been the target of an elaborate

practical joke A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...

. To get even, she separately invites each of the men to meet her for breakfast and when all three arrive, bearing floral arrangements of varying size, a brawl ensues. Laurence sees Martha running off in the distance but is unable to catch her. Despondent, he goes to a travel agency to purchase a ticket anywhere he can go for £99, which proves to be

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

. At the airport gate, he is told he is being seated in First Class and when he boards the plane, he finds Martha waiting for him. She reveals she was responsible for the upgrade, a trick she learned from Daniel.

Cast

as Martha *

as Laurence * Tom Hollander as Daniel *

Rufus Sewell Rufus Frederik Sewell (; born 29 October 1967) is a British film and stage actor. In film, he has appeared in '' Carrington'' (1995), '' ''Hamlet' (1996), ''Dangerous Beauty'' (1998), '' Dark City'' (1998), '' A Knight's Tale ''(2001), '' Th ...

as Frank *

Ray Winstone Raymond Andrew Winstone (; born 19 February 1957) is an English television, stage and film actor with a career spanning five decades. Having worked with many prominent directors, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, Winstone is perha ...

as Pedersen

Production

The film was shot on location in Minneapolis, at

Stansted Airport London Stansted Airport is a tertiary international airport serving London, England, United Kingdom. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, northeast of Central London. London Stansted serves over 160 destinations acro ...

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

, and at various London locations, including

Battersea Park Battersea Park is a 200-acre (83-hectare) green space at Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth in London. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames opposite Chelsea and was opened in 1858. The park occupies marshland recla ...

, Blakes Hotel in

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

, and

South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Alber ...

. The

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

includes "Halo" by

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, "Brown Paper Bag" by

Roni Size Ryan Owen Granville Williams (born 29 October 1969), better known by his stage name Roni Size, is an English DJ and record producer. He came to prominence in 1997 as the founder and frontman of Roni Size & Reprazent, a drum and bass collective. ...

, "Fall in Love with Me" by Booth and the Bad Angel, "Fools Like Us" by Echo & the Bunnymen, "Tape Loop" by

Morcheeba Morcheeba is an English electronic band formed in the mid-1990s with founding members vocalist Skye Edwards and the brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey. They mix influences from trip hop, rock, folk rock and downtempo, and have produced ten regula ...

, and " I Only Want to Be with You" by

Dusty Springfield Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dram ...

Reception

The film has a 33% critic approval on aggregate review site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

with an average score of 4.8/10, based on 9 reviews. Another review aggregator,

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a

weighted mean The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 43, based on 10 reviews, considered to be "mixed or average reviews".

Stephen Holden Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic. Biography Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called the film ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' Derek Elley wrote: "Lack of real chemistry between the leads and unsteady direction by Nick Hamm dampen an otherwise promising screenplay by Peter Morgan." He also called the film "in some respects a '90s version of

Richard Lester Richard Lester Liebman (born January 19, 1932) is an American retired film director based in the United Kingdom. He is best known for directing the Beatles' films '' A Hard Day's Night'' (1964) and '' Help!'' (1965), and the superhero films ' ...

's '60s comedy ''

The Knack The Knack was an American rock band based in Los Angeles that rose to fame with its first single, " My Sharona", an international number-one hit in 1979. History Founding (1977–1978) Singer Doug Fieger was a native of Oak Park, Michigan, a ...

''".

Box office

The film grossed £1.4 million ($2.3 million) in the United Kingdom and $3 million worldwide.

DVD release

The Region 1 DVD was released by

Buena Vista Home Entertainment Buena ( ) is a borough in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 4,603,anamorphic widescreen Anamorphic widescreen (also called Full height anamorphic or FHA) is a process by which a comparatively wide widescreen image is horizontally compressed to fit into a storage medium (photographic film or MPEG-2 standard-definition frame, for e ...

format with an audiotrack and subtitles in English. There are no bonus features. The Region 2 DVD was released on 7 June 2004.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel And Laurence 1998 films 1998 romantic comedy films British romantic comedy films Films scored by Edward Shearmur Films set in London Films set in airports Films shot in London Films shot in Minnesota Films with screenplays by Peter Morgan 1998 directorial debut films 1990s English-language films Films directed by Nick Hamm 1990s British films