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Television also brought overdue recognition to Joely Richardson (sister of the late Natasha, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson) when she starred in Nip/Tuck. Yet she, too, has a long if spottier résumé, including turns as Lady Chatterley in a 1993 TV movie of the same name, Marie Antoinette in The Affair of the Necklace, Wallis Simpson in the TV movie Wallis & Edward…and a costarring role opposite Hugh Laurie in the Disney studio’s live-action version of 101 Dalmatians.

In 2000 they were again cast as husband and wife in a likable comedy called Maybe Baby. It would be difficult to find a more engaging screen couple, so one is immediately drawn into their lives as we learn of their difficulty having a child. If you’ve ever experienced any of the trials and tribulations they go through in this film, you know it was based on firsthand experience. Indeed, the popular British writer-performer Ben Elton, who also directed Maybe Baby, based his screenplay on his autobiographical novel Inconceivable.

Laurie plays a BBC television producer whose insufferable boss is played by Matthew Macfadyen. Our hero longs to write screenplays, and finally decides to write about what he knows: the pain, and humor, of a couple trying to make a baby. The only problem is that he can’t tell his wife what he’s doing, as he is essentially stealing their day-to-day experiences for the sake of a movie. Meanwhile, in her job as a casting director, she faces temptation in the person of a randy, rakishly handsome actor (James Purefoy) who seems unconcerned that she is happily married.

Moments that are plainly, sometimes painfully truthful are balanced against scenes of broad comic exaggeration, with brief but amusing contributions by such eminent comedic actors as Emma Thompson (as a New Age fertility specialist), Rowan Atkinson (as an overly enthusiastic ob/gyn), Joanna Lumley, and Dawn French, this modest British film calls on the best possible source of comedy and drama: real life.

85. THE MERRY GENTLEMAN

(2009)

Directed by Michael Keaton

Screenplay by Ron Lazzeretti

Actors:

MICHAEL KEATON

KELLY MACDONALD

TOM BASTOUNES

BOBBY CANNAVALE

DARLENE HUNT

GUY VAN SWEARINGEN

WILLIAM DICK

As I repeatedly tell my students, every movie has a saga; sometimes the story of how a film came together is just as interesting as the picture itself. In the case of The Merry Gentleman the road to production seemed fairly uneventful at first. Writer Ron Lazzeretti developed the idea for a dark-tinged romantic thriller and showed it to fellow Chicagoan Tom Bastounes, an actor and producer with whom he’d worked on an indie feature called The Opera Lover. They secured financing, and their script was good enough to attract Michael Keaton and the gifted Scottish-born actress Kelly Macdonald to play the leading roles. Bastounes had already targeted the second male lead for himself.

Lazzeretti was all set to direct his own screenplay when a ruptured appendix sent him to the hospital. One thing anyone who works in the film business quickly learns is that a film is like a house of cards that can collapse in the blink of an eye. Unexpected bad weather, a sudden injury, an actor changing his mind: almost anything can throw a promising production out of whack, or destroy it completely.

In this case, Lazzeretti realized that if he tried to put the movie on hold until he recovered it might not happen at all. Then Michael Keaton expressed interest in taking his place behind the camera.

As an actor Keaton has never shied away from a challenge, and he’d grown very fond of this script, and his character. Although he had never directed a feature film before, he felt confident about this one, and the completed film bears that out.

Macdonald plays a vulnerable woman who has fled her abusive husband and moved to Chicago to start life anew. She lands a good office job but keeps an arm’s length from even her friendliest coworkers because she doesn’t want to discuss her past—or explain her bruises.

Keaton