Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges

Spacey plays Prot (rhymes with goat), a quiet unshaven stranger in wraparound shades whom police toss out of Grand Central Station and into Manhattan Psychiatric Center for claiming to be from the planet K-PAX. Bridges plays Dr. Mark Powell, Prot's psychiatrist. Powell's job is to bring Prot back to Earth mentally and keep him here physically. That is, past Prot's upcoming departure date for a return trip to K-PAX, a date Powell fears could have self-destructive consequences for the ward's new resident alien. Complicating what should be a routine case, Prot displays a non-human resistance to Thorazine, Haldol and anything else the hospital pharmacy has on special that week. Further confusing matters are Prot's out-of-this-world knowledge of astronomy and his ability to see Ultra Violet rays. But despite the evidence, Powell knows no one can be from outer space. Can they?

Props to Bridges, who's more accustomed to the role of rebel without a clean shirt, than to the part of a learned and worried medical professional. Mary McCormack is also on hand as Rachel, the frustrated wife of obsessed doctor Powell. McCormack plays the part with the same pained expressions that she brought to her role as Alison, the frustrated wife of obsessed disc jockey Howard Stern in Private Parts. For her efforts, McCormack scores third billing, but the bronze award should have gone to any one of the ensemble cast of crazies who occupy Prot's ward at Manhattan Psychiatric Center. Celia Weston, in particular, stands out as shut-in Mrs. Archer, a past-her-prime and out-of-her-mind southern belle who spent years waiting in her room for a gentleman that never came calling. "The service in this place is terrible!" Weston shrieks after hurling a glob of green gelatin at her orderly in one of K-PAX's lighter moments.

Diehard fans of high-tech sci-fi fare like Aliens, Total Recall, or Armageddon will probably be bored to suspended animation by K-PAX's lack of venom-dripping monsters, exploding planets, or special-effects wizardry. But, for a PG-13 movie – a rating usually reserved for disposable teen flicks of the Bring It On, Legally Blonde, Josie and the Pussycats variety – K-PAX raises mature questions of alien intelligence, treatment of the mentally ill and the importance of the family unit. It suggests, rather than preaches, possible answers to puzzles that have as many sides as there are stars in the night's sky.

It's tough to imagine a more unlikely combination of influences on a story than E.T. and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. But just "open your mind and admit the possibility" to quote the K-PAX's tagline. The film's concept may be far out, but it's a twinkling star of a movie that'll make you want to believe in the power we all have to make our little piece of the Big Blue Marble a little shinier.