Making Mr. Right
                Reviewed by Linda Lopez McAlister
            For The Women's Show, WMNF-FM, Tampa, FL

    I was off to the video store this week since I could see
that there were any good films for feminists in the movie theaters
(although some horror shows are turning up, from what I hear, a
case in point being "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle").  What I came
home with was "Making Mr. Right" a film that one of my students
recommended to me as a cute feminist comedy.  It is a film directed
by Susan Seidelman (who also did "Desperately Seeking Susan"), a very
talented young American director, particularly adept at sight gags
and screwball comedy.  The situation she and her screenwriters set
up in this film is ready-made for all kinds of social commentary--
primarily about men, but on a number of other topics as well.

      The heroine of our story Franki Stone is a stylish and super
competent Miami Beach media consultant who has just broken off an
affair with her main client, a politician named Steve Marcus,
because of his roaming eyes and hands on the campaign trail.
Franki is called in by a high-tech firm called Chem-Tech to add
some pizazz to their P.R. about a space-travelling robot they're
developing, because their government funding is in danger of being
cut off.  One of the funny bits at the beginning of the film is
Chem-Tech's old tv commercial; oooohhh is it bad.  So Franki takes
on the account and goes to work teaching the robot, excuse me, the
android, whose name is Ulysses, how to behave in the polite company
of the press conference and tv talk show.

    Ulysses's creator, Dr. Peters, has made Ulysses in his own
image, so they look exactly alike, and both roles are played, in a
comedic tour de force, by John Malkovich.  I think it's the first
time I've seen him do comedy and he is very good, both as the
nerdy, asocial, scientist and as the increasingly charming and
lovable Ulysses.

    Here's the thing you have to believe for the film to work: you
have to believe that once all Ulysses internal circuitry has been
set up and all his functions are in operation, he then is able to
"learn" things just the way a child would.  In the lab with Dr.
Peters he has learned only logic and rational decision-making,
nothing about emotions, feelings, other people, or the world
outside the lab. So Franki's job is to civilize him--so he can get
on the Carson Show, make America love him, and keep the federal
subsidies flowing.

    I was laughing out loud at the first session between Franki and
Ulysses; she steps out of the room and he goes to work exploring
her purse and tries to figure out what to do with the diaphragm he
finds there.

    Among other things Ulysses learns about love and caring, not to
mention kissing and (thanks to Franki's somewhat ditzy girlfriend
played by Glen Headley) sexual intercourse as well.  (He is an
anatomically correct android as Franki learns when she tells him to
take off his jumpsuit in a clothing store where he's trying on a
tuxedo).

     The complications and confusions that ensue after Ulysses
figures out how to get out of his lab and go places in Miami are
hilarious.  It turns into a comedy of errors and Franki is fired
from her job as Ulysses' teacher, and the scientists continue to
pursue the goal of sending a "manned" or rather "androided"
spaceship off on a seven year mission.  Franki is sitting in front
of the tv, tears streaming down her face and into the pint of
designer ice cream she resorts to when under stress when the
doorbell rings and Mr. Right appears.  Who is it?  I'll never tell.
Rent your own video of this one, when you feel in the mood for some
light comedy with a little feminist edge.

   For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.