What Planet Are You From?

An alien from a distant, highly evolved world where people no longer feel emotions or reproduce naturally is sent to Earth. His mission is to father a child with a human woman and bring the baby home, and he is equipped with an artificial organ built for the task. Living under the name Harold Anderson and posing as a bank employee, he finds that human courtship is far more complicated than his superiors led him to expect, while an FAA investigator grows suspicious of him. A woman he meets wants marriage before anything else.

The comedy was directed by Mike Nichols, the fifteenth of the eighteen films he made, arriving between Primary Colors and Wit. Michael J. Leeson, Ed Solomon and Peter Tolan wrote the screenplay, and Nichols produced with Neil A. Machlis and Garry Shandling. Shandling plays Harold, with Annette Bening as Susan, John Goodman as the investigator Roland Jones, Greg Kinnear, Ben Kingsley and Judy Greer in support; thirty-two cast members are credited.

Released in March 2000, the film cost about 60 million dollars and returned roughly 14 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 5.7 out of 10 from around 10,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.4 from 174 votes. A critics' rating of 5 out of 10 from 76 reviews sits close to the audience scores, so viewers and reviewers responded to it in similar, middling terms.