What Planet Are You From? Review
by "Steve Rhodes" (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)March 17th, 2000
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
"I like your shoes, and you smell nice too," H1449-6 a.k.a. Harold Anderson (Garry Shandling) uses as his favorite come-on line to the women he meets. Harold is on a wham-bamm-thank-you-ma'am assignment from his planet. He has been fitted with a penis (an organ not extant on his home planet) so that he can impregnate a female earthling.
Mike Nichols' WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? is a good-spirited little comedy that takes its audience from smiles to snickers to big laughs as it pokes fun at human philosophy, emotion and sexuality. If this unique show has any roots it is as a social satire version of 1984 but set in the future. The script by Garry Shandling and Michael Leeson is full of smartly-written, bone-dry humor. ("You appear intelligent, but when you open your mouth, the effect is spoiled," is one of the film's typically acute observations.)
Initially, Harold has a terrible time getting a woman to have sex with him. His first strike-out is with a blonde bimbo stewardess, who might appear to be a sure thing. "My boyfriend once told me it was like trying to start a dead car," she tells him, while naked, but frozen, in bed next to him.
Harold goes to work at a bank at which Perry Gordon (Greg Kinnear) works. Perry, in shades of FIGHT CLUB, takes the ever-horny Harold to an AA meeting as a way for them to pick up women. (Perry's wife is played by Linda Fiorentino, who wears some killer outfits. Perhaps the hardest thing to believe in the movie is why anyone would cheat on her.)
As alcoholics get up to testify, Harold sets his eye on a charming ex-drunk named Susan (Annette Bening in another turn as a real-estate agent). Susan is a walking mission statement full of new age philosophies. Her current goal in life is to get to know herself better so that she can focus less on herself and more on others. Her dresser has icons from all of the world's major religions. She is mentally noshing on them until she finds one that she likes.
The once promiscuous Susan has given up sex until after marriage, so Harold agrees to tie the knot with her as a necessary prerequisite to procreation. "You're marrying a woman you haven't had sex with?" Perry asks Greg in absolute astonishment. "Aren't you scared? Didn't you see THE CRYING GAME?"
The film's on-going joke is that Harold's penis hums loudly when he is sexually aroused, which is often. Sounding like a cross between an electric pencil sharpener and a small hand-held fan, his organ hums loudly, which is taken as merely an eccentric oddity by his would-be conquests.
The rest of the wonderful cast includes John Goodman, as a bumbling but persistent FAA investigator, and Ben Kingsley, as the no-nonsense leader of H1449-6's planet.
With squeaky clean sets and a wry sense of humor, the film has jokes that get funnier the more you think about them. Although it's not a message movie, the story has more than its share of commentary on how ridiculous we human beings can be.
In a movie with many good scenes, my favorite is when Harold picks up his naked baby boy and threatens to use the baby as a weapon. "This thing's gonna blow!" he warns attacking soldiers from his planet. And as anyone who has ever held a baby knows, he isn't kidding.
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? runs 1:40. It is rated R for sexuality and language and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
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