General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Making Mr. Right

Making Mr. Right is a 1987 American science-fiction romantic comedy directed by Susan Seidelman, in which a misanthropic scientist builds a human-like android in his own image and hires a public-relations expert to teach it human behavior, with unexpected romantic consequences. John Malkovich plays both the scientist, Jeff Peters, and his creation, the android Ulysses; Ann Magnuson plays the image consultant Frankie Stone.¹ The film was produced by Orion Pictures, opened nationwide on 10 April 1987, and received generally negative reviews.²

Key fact	Detail
Release	10 April 1987, nationwide; Los Angeles and New York openings the same day²
Runtime and rating	98 minutes; MPAA rating PG-13; Dolby Stereo in selected theaters²
Director and writers	Susan Seidelman; screenplay by Floyd Byars and Laurie Frank, their debut feature screenplay²
Principal cast	John Malkovich (Jeff Peters/Ulysses), Ann Magnuson (Frankie Stone), Glenne Headly, Ben Masters, Laurie Metcalf¹^•³
Budget and box office	$9 million budget (Moviegoer, Nov 1986); gross USA $444.8K²^•¹
Critical scores	60% Tomatometer from 15 reviews; 36% Popcornmeter from 1,000+ audience ratings¹
Key crew	Cinematographer Edward Lachman; production designer Barbara Ling; music by Chaz Jankel²^•³

Spoilers

Plot

In Miami, Frankie Stone, an overachieving publicist who works as an image and media consultant, discovers that her boyfriend, Congressman Steve Marcus (Ben Masters), has been involved in a sexual fling with a winner of a beauty contest; she ends the relationship and declines to help with his reelection campaign.²

The workaholic scientist Jeff Peters has built Ulysses, a near-perfect replica of himself, for Chemtech, designed as a space pilot for a seven-year probe of deep space.¹^•⁴ Because Peters lacks human warmth himself, he cannot program it into the android, so Frankie is hired to humanize Ulysses's image and prepare him for public appearances so that Congress will fund the research.³^•¹ Ulysses, designed to mimic and reciprocate human emotion, begins to develop genuine affection, and he and Frankie fall in love.¹ Scenes in which the scientist and the android are mistaken for one another let Seidelman make comic points about her characters' personalities: they make wrong assumptions because of who they are, not because they are stupid.⁵

Production

The script was completed in early 1985, according to promotional materials in the AMPAS library files. Director Susan Seidelman worked with writers Floyd Byars and Laurie Frank through several additional drafts to shift the story from a Frankenstein-type tale to a Pygmalion-style theme, with the main character coaching the android in social graces and the ways of humanity.² Principal photography began in the Miami, Florida area on 28 April 1986, using locations including Miami Beach's Casablanca Hotel for the wedding scenes and the Turnberry Isle condominium complex in North Miami.² The Nov 1986 issue of Moviegoer magazine stated the budget was $9 million.²

Seidelman said she and her designers wanted the near-future setting to feel playful rather than threatening, in deliberate contrast to the dark futures of films like Blade Runner and Mad Max; the cinematography by Edward Lachman and settings designed by Barbara Ling evoke the shiny-clean future of 1950s science-fiction movies.⁶^•⁴

Themes and reception

Critics read the film as a satirical, feminist take on the men women want and, to some extent, create. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes it as a screwball sex comedy in which Ulysses evolves into a parodic, sensitive "new man," and notes that his tendency to short-circuit whenever sexually aroused suggests a pessimistic view of women's chance of happiness.⁷ The film critic Adrian Martin called its feminist critique of the male domain of science succinct and devastating, and quoted the British critic Judith Williamson's New Statesman line: "Forget post modern: this is post men."⁸

Contemporary reviews were divided. Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times critic from 1967 until his death in 2013, called it a smart, quick-witted, wicked and genuinely funny movie, praising Malkovich's dual role and Magnuson's "pert intelligence."⁵ The Los Angeles Times' Sheila Benson found the film brassy and lacking heart, though she called Malkovich's performance its zingiest and sole reason to consider seeing it.⁴ Time's Richard Schickel found the Frankie-Ulysses relationship pleasant but conventionally screwball.⁹ The Washington Post's Rita Kempley called it a flat romantic interface and a disappointing encore for the director of Desperately Seeking Susan.¹⁰ The AFI Catalog records that the film opened nationwide on 10 April 1987 to generally negative reviews.²

Commercial and later standing. The film was nothing like as popular as Seidelman's previous Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), being too offbeat and lacking Madonna, though the SFE judges it just as good.⁷ Its United States gross was $444.8K against a $9 million budget.¹^•² In a later Criterion Collection interview, Seidelman said the film got a lot of mixed reviews and that critics had what she called an absurd interpretation of Malkovich's character, seeing him as a kind of sex bot; she observed that human relationships with AI have since grown familiar in daily life.⁶ The film plays in the Criterion Channel's AI collection.⁶ As of the most recent checks it streams on fuboTV, MGM+ Amazon Channel, Philo, MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel, Criterion Channel, and MGM Plus, and free with ads on Tubi TV.¹¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films of the 1980s › Released 1986 to 1989

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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