Jeff Goldblum stars as an American actor living in London and working as a stooge to a hateful but popular stage comic (Rowan Atkinson). He falls in love with a nurse (Emma Thompson) and finds himself playing the lead in a musical version of The Elephant Man, in an enjoyable English comedy written by Richard Curtis and directed by Mel Smith. Atkinson, Curtis, and Smith all worked on BBC TV’s Not the Nine o’Clock News, and much of this has the free-form giddinessas well as some of the hit-or-miss qualityof some of the best English TV comedy. I’ve never seen Goldblum have a chance to stretch out as a comic actor before, and he certainly helps keep things lively. With Emil Wolk, Hugh Thomas, Anna Massey (in a funny bit as Goldblum’s agent), and Timothy Barlowe (1990). (JR)