Gay Today: Entertainment

What Planet Are You From?

Film Review by Warren D. Adkins

Garry Shandling (right) stars with Greg Kinnear in What Planet Are You From?

Randolfe Wicker, a contributing writer to GayToday and the founder of Clone Rights United Front, probably won't like the cloning premise on which What Planet Are You From? rests. Wicker's famous line, "Heterosexuality's monopoly on reproduction is now obsolete," reminds us of something else that becomes obsolete in this film.

In Planet we're introduced to an alien world where there are, in fact, only men wearing Nehru jackets. While they are indeed reproducing through cloning, their sex lives, as a result, have gone kaput. So have their genitals—having shrunk and disappeared through centuries of non-use. They have no emotions.

Garry Shandling (known affectionately as H1449-6 on his planet but as Harold Anderson when he arrives in Phoenix) has co-written and starred in this amusing romp through the year 2999, directed by Mike Nichols, a comic genius in his own right.

Harold goes to work in a Phoenix bank where he meets a womanizing co-worker, Perry Gordon (Greg Kinnear) a sleazer who's in the habit of cruising AA meetings to get laid. He takes Harold on a cruising spree to teach him the ropes.

Annette Bening (who made a wonderfully wacky real estate saleswoman in American Beauty) once again plays a real estate agent, as well as a recovering alcoholic who has no idea that the gentleman cruising her at her AA meeting has been fitted with a mechanical penis. With this noisy contrivance, he intends to impregnate her so that he and his alien race can begin the slow but sure conquering of planet Earth.

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What Planet Are You From: Official Site
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Harold isn't at all effective as a ladies man. His pick-up lines had been taught and devised by Graydon, his home planet's leader (Ben Kingsley) and they revolve around informing women of their seductive odors and complimenting them for sporting fashionable shoewear.

In case one thinks gay dating is a tough row to hoe, What Planet Are You From? reminds us that the straight life isn't all its cracked up to be. Harold's anxieties— particularly since he's on a mission to conquer through reproduction—are acute. This isn't the first Mike Nichols-directed comedy about male performance anxiety. His classic 1975 interpretation of Jules Feiffer's Carnal Knowledge revolved around a similar theme.

Ben Kingsley (right) plays the alien leader Graydon

Harold's mechanical penis whirrs annoyingly whenever he sees a woman who catches his fancy. Prior to meeting Annete, these include a stewardess, a topless waitress, and his co-worker's sexually-aggressive wife. Thinking that his compliments to women will get him into the sack, he discovers what its like to be rebuffed.

Harold, lets face it, is inept. He experiences all of the anxieties seldom spoken about by shy guys and that have plagued the peoples on this, our planet, since time immemorial. Finding a consenting woman to bear a child is, he discovers, no easy job.

On top of his having female troubles, Harold's also being chased by Roland Jones, an FAA agent played expertly by John Goodman.

Masculine anxieties are at the heart of What Planet Are You From? and create the basis for the droll, comedic fiascoes that erupt throughout. In a sense, it is sex-positive, however, because the men on Harold's non-sexed, unemotional planet are shown as power-hungry conquerors. If they'd only enjoyed sex on a regular basis, the script infers, they wouldn't have become so pushy. "Make love, not war," in other words.

Linda Fiorentino, Camryn Manheim, Nora Dunn and Ann Cusack co-star in Planet. Janeane Garofalo makes a brief appearance..