Making Mr. Right

Good title. One of the ads for this picture state "a man with a good warranty is hand to find." So, alas, is a movie with a good warranty. Now, this is not a terrible picture, but it is almost unrelentingly mediocre, which is a disappointment because the premise is good and it could have been much better. Also a little disappointing because we expected a lot from Susan Seidelman, whose “Desperately Seeking Susan” was an offbeat charmer. Ann Magnuson stars as a young P. R. exec who is assigned to promote a new android (played well by John Malkovich). But the woman, who has recently been treated badly by her politician-boyfriend (and so has decided that all men are beasts) finds the android (named Ulysses) so much superior to real men that she falls in love with him (it?). Now this is a potentially great setup for a comédy of manners--a real satirical look at the relationships between men and women.

But the picture falls way short of this, relying all too frequently on cheap, smarmy humor (which always comes off as a little awkward) or pedestrian slapstick. Part of the problem is that Ulysses, while well played by Malkovich, is not visibly superior to real men. Oh, he is cute enough all right, and highly innocent, and utterly guileless, but he is a bit of a dork, gawking around with all the grace of a crippled stork. He is like an overgrown puppy, and while he does have a few hilarious bits (check the scene with the diaphragm) it is too implausible (even in this picture) that the sophisticated woman played by Magnuson (can't remember the name, dammit) would fall in love with him. He gets to be a bit of a bone. Plus, his head has a habit of coming off. The picture is actually reduced for too long to Magnuson chasing Ulysses around town, as the newly escaped robot has a good time at the mall. This is tired humor, I'm afraid. The nice twist in the picture is having Malkovich also play the bitter, misogynistic scientist who created Ulysses; he is a far more interesting and well-developed character, and Malkovich is excellent.

He also has the greatest potential for growth in the picture but is shortchanged in the end. It would have been nice if he could have learned something from his creation. Instead, the picture goes for a neater, less ambiguous, but also less satisfying ending. This could have really been something if the android really HAD been far superior to men, and both the men and the women had been forced to reevaluate their preconceptionsas a result. But the filmmakers are timid; they are (or seem to be) afraid of really putting the screws on the whole issue. Instead they opt for easy laughs. The thing is that when they try to tack on a serious note at the end, it comes across as very forced. Well, you say, maybe that isn't the picture thev were trying to make. Well, I say, it should have been.