A high-powered P.R. woman, hired to generate some positive publicity and thereby re-generate some public funds for a top-secret android called "Ulysses," sets about to instill some social graces in him. Several roads unfold in front of the movie at this point, most prominently the Pygmalion theme, with the traditional sexual roles reversed and a chance to itemize a sort of computer program of What Women Want. A satire on modern advertising is another possible route; as is The Childlike Innocent Let Loose in Society (in the footsteps of Kaspar Hauser, Chauncey the gardener, E.T., the mermaid from Splash, the robot from Short Circuit, et al.); as is the increasingly popular spiritual issue of the emotional capacity of automatons (see, again, Short Circuit). But though the movie takes a look in each of these directions, and takes a few halting steps in one and another of them, it never does get far from the crossroads. Director Susan Seidelman's attraction to highly individual and individualized people (including Ann Magnuson, with her special combination of impish sparkle and thuggish glare, in her first starring role) promotes some good will, if few actual laughs. With John Malkovich. (1987) — Duncan Shepherd
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