MAKING MR. RIGHT
With Ann Magnuson, John Malkovich, Ben Masters, Laurie Metcalf, and Polly Bergen.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Shorn of her lover and number one business problem, she’s doubly free when she’s approached by the executives of Chemtech, a firm that wants her to mount a public relations campaign for their new product, a robot that’s being prepared for deep-space exploration. Frankie agrees, only to be dumbfounded by the discovery that the robot is a human-appearing android designed in the image of its creator, Dr. Jeff Peters (John Malkovich, in a dual role). And while Peters is a hostile, rude, antisocial introvert, his invention, Ulysses, is a warm, childlike thing, unburdened by socially determined personality traits, a tabula rasa. It doesn’t take long for the consultant to impress her image of male perfection on the appealing concatenation of circuits, and, to the ultimate consternation of Peters and his bosses, before you know it Ulysses becomes a paradigm of the sensitive, caring New Man.
This kind of adornment is at the heart of Seidelman’s style; all three of her films (Smithereens was the first) have easy-to-relate plots, but their unfolding almost defies description. And as she decorates her plots, so does Seidelman decorate her characters. Seidelman loves to change their clothes, and each change of wardrobe indicates a deeper, interior change. When Frankie takes Ulysses out into the world–or, rather, when he escapes into it in the back of her car–he ends up tossing aside his blue coveralls for an ill-fitting, comically enchanting tuxedo. And we know that Seidelman must be fond of Frankie just from how she appears in the opening of the movie in a bright red dress driving a bright red car and putting on bright red lipstick.
The whole cast deserves a lot of praise, even down to the smallest parts. Laurie Metcalf is hilarious as a Chemtech employee with a crush on Peters, who unfortunately can’t tell the difference between scientist and robot. Harsh Nayyar cuts a memorable figure as Chemtech’s Indian president, Dr. Ramdas. And so on down the list.
