The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Mannequin
Comedy · Romance · Fantasy · 1987
Jonathan Switcher, an unemployed artist, finds a job as an assistant window dresser for a department store. When Jonathan happens upon a beautiful mannequin he previously designed, she springs to life and introduces herself as Emmy, an Egyptian under an ancient spell. Despite interference from the store's devious manager, Jonathan and his mannequin fall in love while creating eye-catching window displays to keep the struggling store in business.
Movie details
Mannequin
“Just because Jonathan's fallen in love with a piece of wood, it doesn't make him a dummy.”
1987 Comedy · Romance · Fantasy 1h 29m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.0 / 10
39.1K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
20 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
21 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.9 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Jonathan Switcher, an unemployed artist, finds a job as an assistant window dresser for a department store. When Jonathan happens upon a beautiful mannequin he previously designed, she springs to life and introduces herself as Emmy, an Egyptian under an ancient spell. Despite interference from the store's devious manager, Jonathan and his mannequin fall in love while creating eye-catching window displays to keep the struggling store in business.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Mannequin?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Comedy · 1947
Walter Mitty, a daydreaming writer with an overprotective mother, likes to imagine that he is a hero who experiences fantastic adventures. His dream becomes reality when he accidentally meets a mysterious woman who hands him a little black book. According to her, it contains the locations of the Dutch crown jewels hidden since World War II. Soon, Mitty finds himself in the middle of a confusing conspiracy, where he has difficulty differentiating between fact and fiction.
Girl Haunts Boy
Fantasy · 2024
Cole, a teen grieving the loss of his dad, forms an unlikely bond with Bea, a ghost. As they navigate life and death, they must break an ancient curse.
Penelope
Fantasy · 2007
Forlorn heiress Penelope Wilhern is cursed, and the only way out is to fall in love with someone of suitable stock. But how can she find her soulmate when she's sequestered inside her family's estate with only her parents to keep her company? This untraditional fairy tale is about a girl who bucks convention to create her own happy ending.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Fantasy · 1999
The lovely Hermia is to wed Demetrius, but she truly cares for Lysander. Hermia's friend, Helena, is in love with Demetrius, while other romantic entanglements abound in the woods, with married fairy rulers Titania and Oberon toying with various lovers and each other.
Irish Wish
Romance · 2024
Maddie's dream guy is days away from marrying her best friend when a wish for true love made on an ancient stone in Ireland magically alters her fate.
How to Marry a Millionaire
Comedy · 1953
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
Enchanted
Comedy · 2007
The beautiful princess Giselle is banished by an evil queen from her magical, musical animated land and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn't operate on a "happily ever after" basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer who has come to her aid - even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince back home - she has to wonder: Can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?
La Dolce Villa
Romance · 2025
When his daughter decides to buy a crumbling Tuscan villa, Eric rushes to Italy to talk her out of it — and instead finds beauty, romance and new purpose.
Yoh! Bestie
Romance · 2026
Thando is perpetually unlucky in love, but when her bestie returns from his travels with a fiancée in tow, she's forced to face a new emotion — jealousy.
Mannequin Two: On the Move
Fantasy · 1991
Although Jason works as a department store clerk, he is also a reincarnated prince. Long ago, his beloved Jessie was snatched away from him by an evil wizard who used his powers to transform her into wooden statue. Now Jessie is in Jason's department store as a mannequin. When he encounters her, she awakens from her thousand-year sleep. They quickly revive their romance, but the evil wizard has been reincarnated as well, and he's up to no good.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Michael Gottlieb
Written by
Edward Rugoff · Michael Gottlieb
Andrew McCarthy
Jonathan Switcher
Kim Cattrall
Ema 'Emmy' Hesire
Estelle Getty
Claire Prince Timkin
James Spader
Mr. Richards
G.W. Bailey
Captain Felix Maxwell
Carole Davis
Roxie Shield
Meshach Taylor
Hollywood
Court is in session
Put Mannequin on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.