WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?
| In a classic Ray Bradbury story, invading aliens are welcomed to Planet Earth with open arms in a carnival atmosphere complete with a marching band. It isn’t long before they are assimilated into the local culture and become indistinguishable from their human brethren. Gary Shandling’s alien Harold (H1449-6 is his real name) suffers a similar fate in "What Planet Are You From?" He comes to earth as the advance force to impregnate a woman to help perpetuate his species and ends up like a typical perplexed male on an endless quest to figure out what makes women tick. | |
The set up: Harold’s peers may have superior intellects that has allowed them to advance technologically eons ahead of earth but they are from intellectual. They are delightfully dull. Their clinical view of the universe leaves no room for subtlety or interpretation. It’s a mind set that opens up a Pandora’s box of burlesque humor that relies more on Gary Shandling’s monochromatic delivery than the scripted word. Their vision of womanhood is based on a hologram of a laughable female stereotype from the fifties. Harold’s outdated forms of flattery could only work with housewives and hookers. Although, this is in keeping with his character - the emotionless clone. It’s a running gag that wears itself out. Likewise the joke about his sex organ whizzing and whirring like an egg beater whenever he gets aroused suffers from the law of diminishing returns. If there’s any genuine humor at all, it comes from his total lack of embarrassment - another tell tale sign that he is ‘different.’ Once Harold is installed in the bank job set up by his alien boss, Graydon (Ben Kingsley), he is befriended by Perry Gordon who thinks that Harold is just clueless.
Greg Kinnear is to "What Planet Are You From?" what Gig Young was to some lite comedies with Doris Day in the late fifties and mid sixties, like "Teacher’s Pet" (1958) and "That Touch of Mink" (1962). Kinnear’s Perry Gordon is a lovable cad who cheats on his gorgeous wife (Linda Fiorentino) and flaunts his indiscretions. He gladly takes Harold foraging for females at the one place where women have been the most receptive to his charms. - Alcoholics Anonymous. There, Harold meets Susan. Sweet! Vulnerable! Dying-to-have-a-kid-so-she-can-turn-her- life-around Susan! The only hitch is, she doesn’t want to make the same mistakes - choosing bad men - that drove her to the bottle. She wants a regular guy - someone she can depend on - a family man. She swears she’ll never do - it - again until she gets married. Marriage isn’t exactly what Harold had in mind. It wasn’t part of his training. There are no women on his planet. There is no Plan B. He just wants a kid. He can’t go back home empty handed. So what’s an alien to do? Once Harold commits, "What Planet Are You From?" is transformed from a one note string of Gary Shandling routines into an exploration of the mystery of male/female relationships. Annette Bening’s Susan brings a spectrum of emotions to the table that allows Harold to feast and learn that there is more to winning a woman’s trust and her heart than getting married and making babies. He learns how to be more human, while Susan has to come up with a new definition of ‘normal,’ especially when her short gestation period turns out to be anything but. The baby becomes the most important thing in their lives. The rest they have to sort out just like every other maladjusted couple.
| The second half of "What Planet Are You From" plays better than the first. The Period of Adjustment (a fifties term that has lost its coinage) that comes after the vows are said and the honeymoon is over turns the movie into an adult Mork and Mindy type of sitcom. At first Harold becomes more empathetic with Susan’s pregnancy. Then he turns into a couch potato. He searches for the meaning of life through the art of channel surfing - at least until the kid comes. |  |
| Then he must choose between the sterile life he left behind or an unpredictable one with Susan. Every new twist in the curl of Gary Shandling’s trademark grimace, half laugh - half smirk, actually starts to convey shades of emotion under the watchful eye of director Mike Nichols. Annette Bening’s performance is just the opposite. She wears Susan’s emotions like a coat of many colors for the whole world to see. If there’s any reason to see this move, she’s it. Ironically, Susan’s half child/half woman is a throwback to the ditsy characters patented by Bening’s Sister-in-Law, Shirley McLaine, in the early stages of her career. |
The biggest problem with "What Planet Are you From" is that it’s all been done before without the excuse of an alien to create confusion among the sexes. John Goodman has the thankless role of being an alien hunter for additional comic relief. In actuality, the downward spiral of his character’s relationship with his wife stresses the crucial role of trust between the sexes when compared to the upward swing in Harold’s life with Susan. At best, "What Planet Are You From?" is a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed in the absence of anything better.
Other movies with women who live aliens!
"I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (1958) - Actor turned author, Tom Tryon is the title character in this low budget treasure about a wife who suspects her husband’s been acting a little strange. Little does she know. This was the inspiration "The Astronaut’s Wife" (1999) but plays much better despite its age.
"The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976) (The original release version) - Dir. Nicholas Roeg: A one of a kind movie with David Bowie as the alien stranded on earth who pines for his family but has to settle for Candy Clark! Corporate espionage, graphic sex (at least for its time) and rock’n roll are just a few of the disparate elements that come together through director Nicholas Roeg’s cinematic osmosis.
A couple of alien free flicks about the war between the sexes from director Mike Nichols
"Carnal Knowledge" (1971) - Time has not dampened writer Jules Feiffer’s tale about the sexual obsessions of two buddies who leave a wake of broken hearts behind them. With Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen and Anne Margret in a career building performance.
"Heartburn" (1986) - Nora Ephron’s autobiographical account of her love life, with all its joys, disappointments, and heartbreak. Jack Nicholson is a philanderer and Meryl Streep is the one who won’t stand for it even if she is pregnant! They bring a lot more than meets the eye.
Another relationship movie from Nichols and Nicholson with a horror twist.
"Wolf" (1994) - Jack gets bit by a wolf and turns into - you guessed it - a werewolf. But is it enough to stop him from falling for Michelle Pfeiffer who may be the cause of his problem? There’s more atmosphere than plot but - once again - it’s always the stars who make it all work in the best of Mike Nichols’ movies