Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence Joseph Fiennes 1998 DVD Top-quality

Music executive Daniel (Tom Hollander), actor Frank (Rufus Sewell) and painter Laurence (Joseph Fiennes) have been friends since childhood. Their relationship comes under strain, however, when all three find themselves pursuing the same woman – American Martha (Monica Potter), who has just arrived in England with a one-way ticket. Each man encounters Martha separately, but when she meets them en masse, which will she choose, if any?
The generic title of Martha – Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence suggests a bland, by-the-numbers romantic comedy. Its dialogue certainly doesn’t help–there’s a lot of piffle about destiny and “having only one chance”, etc.–but there are some surprising differences. The plot centres around Martha (Monica Potter), an American trying to start a new life in London. She meets three men (Tom Hollander, Rufus Sewell and Joseph Fiennes, who played the title role in Shakespeare in Love). These three are best friends and all three fall in love with her but the one she falls in love with feels like he’s betraying the others to be with her. Despite the resulting confusion, she pursues him to the end–which makes it unlike most current romantic comedies where the woman is a hapless love object to be captured by the right guy. But more entertainingly, Martha – Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence pays particular attention to the ways men delude themselves because the two friends Martha doesn’t care for are both convinced she’s hankering for them, which allows for some fairly subtle skewering of the male ego. It’s a flimsy movie but no more so than Notting Hill and Joseph Fiennes, in particular, has a relaxed, winning charm that marks him as a rising star. –Bret Fetzer