In a perfect world, Ann Magnuson would have had a long career of leading roles in movies while attracting a growing cult following for her musical endeavors. Alas, neither of these things happened, though not for lack of trying. I challenge anybody to see 1987’s Making Mr. Right and not wonder why they haven’t seen her in more things.
Prior to the first time I watched this movie back in the 1990’s, I was mostly aware of her as being the vocalist for the Bongwater, a curious pairing of her and studio wiz Kramer as they mostly did very weird covers of songs from the first psychedelic era. I think the title of the track “Dazed and Chinese” will tell you exactly what it sounds like.
Up until seeing this film, I only knew she had an amazing voice. Turns out she has stellar acting chops as well, though there haven’t been many opportunities to see her beyond some supporting roles.
She is well-served by director Susan Seidelman, whose previous film was Desperately Seeking Susan. No knock on Madonna, but Magnuson could act circles around her. She could probably act all kinds of complex patterns around that other singer, of designs that are usually only achieved using a Spirograph.
I imagine it is especially difficult to hold your ground when your co-star is John Malkovich. He doesn’t do many comedies, but his performance here makes me wish he would do more of them. Here, he plays a brilliant but socially awkward scientist who creates an extremely lifelike robot modelled after himself. This humanoid is to helm a spacecraft to be sent on a one-way trip to explore the cosmos.
Things go haywire when the robot gradually falls in love with Magnuson, who is running the public relations campaign for the cybernetics firm. Some brilliant setups for comedy are created when she tries to make her philandering former boyfriend jealous by pretending the scientist is in love with her, while the android sneaks out of the facility.
Curiously, the funniest scene involves the escaped cyborg and Laurie Metcalf, who thinks she is on a date with its creator. I felt terrible for Metcalf’s lovelorn character, who endures many humiliations from the oblivious robot, but I didn’t feel so bad that it prevented me from laughing long and hard. At one point, Malkovich seems to be eating one of every item on a restaurant’s entire menu. “I usually don’t get foods with so many colors.” He starts covered everything in ketchup, and this inadvertently includes Metcalf.
Another shocking and hilarious scene involves Glenne Headly as Magnuson’s best friend, who makes a disastrous attempt to seduce somebody she does not realize is an artificial man. That scenario ends up literally ass-backwards. An interesting bit of behind-the-scenes trivia: she was Malkovich’s real-life wife at the time.
Other actors also fare well here, though few roles are anywhere near as substantial as that of the two leads. Susan Berman plays Magnuson’s sister, who is preparing for a wedding to which their mother (Polly Bergen) vocally disapproves. I think it’s funny how shocking Berman’s blue hair must have been at the time, when nobody would blink if they saw it today.
Also, it is interesting how these three look like they really could be related, something you rarely see on the big screen or TV. The similarity makes their rapport seem even more natural. Consider this exchange between Berman and Bergen about the former’s hairy armpits: “Shaving armpits is such a bourgeois concept.” “Marriage is a bourgeois concept.”
I enjoy Making Mr. Right more each time I see it, and I think I’ve seen it three times now. There is an additional element to this that may appeal more to some viewers than it did to me, and that is people with a strong nostalgia for the 80’s will find much to gush over. And yet, the movie, with all of its retrofuturism and Florida Art Deco architecture, is nostalgic for earlier eras itself. So, I recommend this for fans who are nostalgic for the nostalgia of an earlier era.
Dir: Susan Siedelman
Starring Ann Magnuson, John Malkovich, Glenne Headly, Laurie Metcalf
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray