What Planet Are You From?

Whereas a mid-winter release often spells the kiss of death for a movie, considering such successes as Birdcage and Primary Colors, veteran director Mike Nichols seems to thrive on it. Despite what you might think from the trailers, with his latest movie, which also constitutes Garry Shandling's first bigscreen starring and writing vehicle, he looks to have avoided seasonal disaster once again.

Shandling (who, you must admit, is well-cast as an alien) plays H1449-6, a.k.a. Harold Anderson, resident of planet not so far from here that they aren't worried about being discovered in a few generations. A race of technologically advanced cloned males, they've hit a snag in their plans for galactic domination: they need to impregnate human women to infiltrate Earth, but they've out-evolved not only any use for their emotions but also for their genitals (there's a lesson there someplace). So Harold undergoes intensive orientation to the mating rituals of h. sapiens, and is outfitted with a high-tech johnson. Beaming down to a job as a Phoenix banker, he gets tutored in the finer points of the quick pick-up by a randy, indiscreet co-worker (Greg Kinnear) who takes him to strip clubs and AA meetings looking for vulnerable meat.

Granted, that sounds like a really bad episode of Flesh Gordon (or maybe a Donald Trump campaign speech), but what could have been a hopelessly tasteless exercise in sophomoric frat-boy humor comes off surprisingly dry and understated. Really. Except for a couple too many jokes about Harold's terrestrial extra (when aroused it makes a sound somewhere between a Black & Decker variable-speed sander and an electric garage-door opener), this film is surprisingly serious in places, thanks largely to another excellent performance from Oscar-nominated Annette Bening as Susan, a reformed alcoholic New Age realtor who finds Harold's directness refreshing. Also along are Linda Fiorentino as Kinnear's sultry wife, John Goodman as an FAA investigator obsessed with his own private X-file, Camryn Manheim (who appears sporting a hairdo that was apparently crafted by an crazed accountant -- think French twist/#2 pencil) as Susan's best friend, and Ben "Gandhi" Kingsley, who as leader of the He-Man Woman-Haters World lends an insanely straight-faced gravity to the proceedings.

What Planet Are You From? is admittedly a rather schizoid film (as evidenced by its other co-writers: Peter Tolan, from Analyze This, and Michael Leeson, who penned the deeply dark War of the Roses), bouncing back and forth between silly sex farce and gender-alienation parable. You have to hand it to Garry Shandling, though, for taking a chance on unlikely subject matter for his first movie comedy, even if it works better on some levels than others. As with Danny DeVito, he's used his reputation to attract first-rate talent to make it work. One thing I do wonder about -- maybe you know that perhaps the best science fiction film ever, Blade Runner, licensed its title from a wholly unrelated novel, having been based on Philip K. Dick's (no snickering) book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I can't help wondering if this film might have gotten more attention if it had borrowed a title also, this time from a Joe Haldeman s.f. story that was retitled "The Sum of His Parts" for publication but was originally called "Tom Swift and His Electric Penis." B-

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