My Stepmother Is an Alien is a 1988 American science fiction comedy film directed by Richard Benjamin. It stars Dan Aykroyd, Kim Basinger, and Jon Lovitz. The film follows the story of Celeste, an extraterrestrial woman who is sent on a secret mission to Earth, after her home planet's gravity is mistakenly disrupted by Steven Mills, a widowed scientist raising his daughter Jessie as a single father. The film was the film debut of Juliette Lewis. The screenplay was written by Herschel Weingrod, Timothy Harris, and Jonathan Reynolds, based on an earlier script by Jericho Stone. Stone had originally pitched the film to Paramount Pictures as a drama that would serve as an allegory for child abuse. When Paramount optioned the story, they suggested that it would be more believable as a comedy. The film was unproduced for four years until Weintraub Entertainment Group put it into production in 1988. My Stepmother Is an Alien was a box-office bomb, grossing only $13.8 million against a $19 million budget, but later enjoyed lucrative success in the home video market. The film received negative reviews from critics, with most of the responses panning the film's humor and screenplay. Basinger and Lovitz received generally favorable reviews for their comedic performances, but in a New York Times review, Aykroyd was singled out for criticism for his performance as a romantic lead.
Plot Steven Mills is a widowed scientist working on different ways to send radio waves into deep space. After he sends a radio wave out of the galaxy, it hits the planet of Cosine N to the 8th, disrupting the planet's gravity. Celeste is sent to investigate the supposed attack. She is aided by a device called Bag, an alien tentacle with a single eye and a mind of its own, disguised as a designer purse. Bag is able to create any object, such as diamonds and designer dresses, almost instantaneously. Celeste crashes a party hosted by Steven's playboy brother, Ron, and immediately draws attention to herself by making outdated references to TV shows and political slogans under the mistaken belief that they are current. Celeste's inexperience almost results in her exposing herself as an alien as she struggles with simple tasks such as cooking and trying to kiss for the first time. She goes home with Steven and spends the night after Bag teaches her about sex, which she then greatly enjoys. Jessie, Steven's 13-year-old daughter, is at first happy that her father has found someone (her mother having died five years previously) but becomes suspicious when she observes Celeste eating the acid from batteries and pulling eggs out of boiling hot water with her bare hands. She unsuccessfully tries to convince her smitten father that something is unusual about Celeste. When Celeste tells Steven that she must leave in 24 hours, he impulsively proposes and she accepts. Ron also has his doubts about Celeste and tries to dissuade Steven from marrying her, assuming she is an illegal immigrant or planning economic espionage, but then admits he is just jealous his brother has found his dream woman, whereas he longs to find a woman like Princess Stéphanie of Monaco. Celeste begins enjoying life as a human as she encounters new experiences such as sneezing and love. When Jessie finally confronts her about being an extraterrestrial, Celeste admits her home world has no emotion and that she plans to depart once she gets Steven to recreate the radio signal and send it, reversing the gravity problems on her world. Celeste begins to question her decisions when Jessie says it will devastate her father for whom Celeste has now developed feelings. After Jessie argues with Steven, she runs away and is nearly hit by a car but is saved by Celeste, who reveals her powers in the process. Steven accepts that Celeste is indeed an alien and that she has fallen in love with him and sees Jessie as her daughter. He further integrates her to human society by showing her how to eat real food. Steven figures out how to recreate the radio wave and saves Celeste's planet. Bag, however, had been sent to Earth to destroy it and eliminate the danger to Celeste's world entirely. After Bag is destroyed by being thrown into the power field of the wave transmitter, the leaders of Celeste's world tell her to finish Bag's job. Steven and Celeste convince them the first ray was an accident, not an act of aggression, and that Earth has many benefits that require further studying. They accept the explanation and demand that Celeste return to explain human culture to them. Not wanting to leave, Celeste negotiates having a native of Earth become an ambassador to their world as a token of goodwill. Ron is selected and accepts; he departs for Celeste's world in a spaceship served by several flight attendants, all of whom look like Princess Stéphanie and are enchanted by Ron's Rolls-Royce, which he takes with him.
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