CAPABLE CAST MAKES WEAK PLOT OF `FRIENDS' WORTH SITTING THROUGH

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993                   TAG: 9303060277
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CAPABLE CAST MAKES WEAK PLOT OF `FRIENDS' WORTH SITTING THROUGH
"Peter's Friends" is the latest movie from director-actor Kenneth Branagh, who made such a big splash with his vigorous "Henry V" and followed it with the stylish thriller "Dead Again."
Branagh has chosen an entirely different kind of movie from either of those, a reunion comedy-drama about college friends who gather for a party 10 years after school. This kind of movie has never been better than John Sayles' "Return of the Secaucus Seven." And after "The Big Chill," it's beginning to take on an unwanted familiarity.
The movie begins in 1982, hardly a period of seismic social change and galvanizing ideals. An amateur theatrical troupe is putting on an energetic show for a bunch of British aristocrats.
Flash forward 10 years, and Peter (Stephen Fry) is settling the affairs of his deceased father and planning a reunion of these same people at his posh country estate.
Andrew (Branagh) is now a successful television writer. His wife, Carol (Rita Rudner), is a sitcom actress with an addictive personality that encompasses exercise, bulimia and alcoholism. Maggie (Emma Thompson) is a spinsterish publisher with her sights still set on Peter. Roger (Hugh Laurie) and Mary (Imelda Staunton) are jingle writers trying to cope with the death of their child.
Sarah (Alphonsia Emmanuel) is a sexually frisky costume designer with her latest squeeze in tow. He's an oafish actor played by Tony Slattery.
Vera (Phylidda Law) is the housekeeper and the one island of calm in the midst of these thirtysomethings awash in problems.
This is the kind of set-up in which everything comes to a boil at once. Two couples split, another works through its problems and some of the friends find out, hey I'm-OK-You're-OK. It's more like a women-allowed Iron John weekend than a party and is thus on the contrived side.
The script - written by Rudner and her husband, Martin Bergman - swings from amusing patter to painful and uncomfortable interchanges. Though the direction the story's heading is predictable, the cast is accomplished enough to engage our interest.
Thompson is always a delight no matter what the role. Rudner, a stand-up comic, zips off some funny lines in her characteristic deadpan manner. Branagh settles comfortably into the most complex role, and Fry and Law give the movie heart.
Peter's Friends: **1/2 Showing at the Grandin Theatre. Unrated but contains strong language and sexual situations; 102 minutes.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB