'K-Pax': Sorting Out a Topsy-Turvy Universe

You meet the nicest people in Hollywood's mental hospitals now that Nurse Ratched no longer serves the Thorazine cocktails. The doctors are caring, the inmates are quirky and the wards bespeak feng shui.

Such is the case in the fanciful "K-Pax," a provocative if simplistic parable on the familiar foibles of humankind. Of course it's easy to look down your nose at Earth if, like Prot (the splendid Kevin Spacey), you come from a world as evolved as the planet K-Pax.

The movies keep telling us what a lamentable species we are, and there has been no shortage of galactic do-gooders ready to drop down and show us the way: "The Brother From Another Planet," "Starman" and everyone's favorite rubber redeemer, "E.T." The twist is that Prot, while convincing, might not be an alien at all. He may have toppled from a cuckoo's nest.

The film opens with a mugging in Grand Central Station. Prot appears out of nowhere to help the victim and is mistaken for the perp. He tells his story to the NYPD. Naturally they think he's mad and ship him off to a public hospital that looks more like a rehab center for strung-out movie stars.

Prot winds up under the care of the weary but avuncular Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges). The seasoned psychiatrist fields the hospital's most difficult cases, most of whom seem to be delightful delusionals. Yet even he is challenged by Prot's elaborate masquerade – or is it?

While initially certain that his patient is faking, Powell is so impressed with Prot's scientific prowess that he puts the K-Paxian's claims to a group of skeptical astronomers. They are astounded to discover that Prot's knowledge of the cosmos not only equals but surpasses their own.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the most intractable patients begin to recover thanks to Prot, whose simple methods eliminate the need for mind-altering drugs and decades of psychoanalysis. Powell, who has begun to doubt his own reality, says it is his job to cure his patients. "Then why don't you?" asks Prot.

Even though that comeback is expected, it gets a laugh and no doubt the approval of those who buy into the romantic belief that the sane are locked up while the real lunatics wear the white coats. That has been proved true in many cases, but emotionally stable movie psychiatrists seem far rarer than in real life.

Powell is something of an exception, though he does need to spend more time with his family and reconnect with his alienated son. The doctor's wife complains to Prot and, like the patients on the ward, Powell begins to respond to his benign influence, finally realizing that he, too, is light-years from his "home." Guess the doctor missed "E.T."

"K-Pax" recalls many other films, "The Fisher King" foremost among them. That movie also starred Bridges, but Robin Williams was the crazy homeless one. That movie dealt with weighty social issues and was grounded in the real world. "K-Pax" just thinks it has something profound to say about the human condition.

Primarily, it's a warm, fuzzy and funny duet between Spacey and Bridges, one that brings to mind the interplay between Spock and Kirk. The picture never quite reaches the stars, but it definitely rises above much of what passes for entertainment today.

K-PAX (PG-13, 121 minutes) – contains violent images, language and sensuality. At area theaters.