When The Wind Blows

When the Wind Blows has one of those outrageous premises that you either buy into (a girl with wings?), or you don't. Fortunately, Blair Brown's narration helps you suspend disbelief. Brown, the multi-Emmy-nominated star of the classic TV series The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, reads the story with more authority than the plot seems to merit. But as urgent and forceful as she is with the central narration, she's even better when reading the first-person passages in the voice of Frannie O'Neill, the widowed veterinarian at the center of this James Patterson thriller. That's when she gives the story real heart, a desperately needed humanity in the midst of all the cloning and genetic tinkering. (Running time: six hours, four cassettes) --Lou Schuler