In Miami, Florida, image and media consultant Frankie Stone is an overachieving woman who is perpetually stressed and constantly late for appointments. When Frankie learns her boyfriend, Congressman Steve Marcus, had a sexual fling with a beauty contest winner, she breaks up with him and refuses to work on his reelection campaign. Research and technology company Chemtec hires Frankie to help with the public relations campaign to introduce a state-of-the art, human-looking android named Ulysses, developed for missions to explore deep space. Frankie drives to the Chemtec campus where she meets Ulysses, who has never seen a woman before. Curious about her breasts, Ulysses places his hands on Frankie’s chest to feel them. She pushes him away and the android shuts down. Scientist Dr. Jeff Peters, who invented Ulysses and built him in his own image, comes in, takes off Ulysses’s head, and presses his reset button. Dr. Peters explains that programming the android can only go so far and Ulysses must learn other things, especially motor functions, just like a child. Frankie volunteers to help Ulysses learn social graces, especially around women. When Frankie returns to her South Beach apartment, her friend Trish is waiting for her. Trish has left her husband Don, an actor on the popular nighttime soap opera New Jersey, after she caught him having an affair with another actress on the television show. Congressman Steve Marcus comes to see Frankie at Chemtec, bringing her flowers in an attempt to woo her back into working on his reelection campaign. When she refuses, he threatens to hire her former assistant, Suzy Duncan. Meanwhile, Dr. Peters is upset to discover that Ulysses has gone through Frankie’s purse, smeared red lipstick on his face, put pantyhose on his head and is smoking a cigarette. Dr. Peters storms outside to confront Frankie who uses his arrival to make Steve Marcus jealous by pretending they are dating. Later, Sandy, a Chemtec research assistant, pressures Dr. Peters to go out on a date with her, but he runs away. When Frankie returns home, she finds Trish’s husband Don has arrived and the two are arguing loudly. Needing some peace for the night, she returns to Chemtec, where Ulysses gives her a foot massage and Frankie explains more about stages of intimacy. She gives Ulysses a kiss on the cheek, explaining it is a sign of affection. The next morning, Ulysses gives Dr. Peters a kiss on the cheek, which causes the android’s creator to wonder exactly what Frankie is teaching him. Dr. Peters remarks that Ulysses is going alone into deep space for seven years and does not need such social training. Ulysses slips out of the underground laboratory and takes the escalator to the surface, where he sees the outside world for the first time. He hides in the back of Frankie’s car, revealing himself to her when they get to a large shopping mall. Despite Frankie’s efforts to stop him, Ulysses explores the mall and runs into Steve Marcus, who is campaigning there. Steve mistakes him for Dr. Peters and Frankie pretends they are there for a tuxedo fitting for her sister’s upcoming wedding. While Ulysses tries on the tux, Frankie and the store clerk discover the android has a very large penis. Ulysses slips away from Frankie again and continues exploring the mall when he runs into Chemtec assistant Sandy, who also mistakes him for Dr. Peters. After the two go shopping and have a meal, Ulysses has Sandy take him to Frankie’s apartment where Ulysses has sex with Frankie’s friend, Trish. As Frankie drives him back to Chemtec, Ulysses says if he were human, he would be in love with Frankie. The next day, after Frankie’s mother reports that Steve Marcus is walking her sister down the aisle at the wedding, Frankie invites Dr. Peters to be her date for the wedding. He says he is not good with people, but Frankie insists he go. In the days that follow, Ulysses sends Frankie many expensive gifts, believing she is mad at him for having sex with Trish and that he must somehow apologize. At the wedding reception, Frankie and Dr. Peters dance together, but Steve Marcus cuts in on them, telling Frankie he wants a second chance and wants to marry her. Meanwhile, Trish is stunned by Dr. Peters’s resemblance to Ulysses and flirts with him. At the same time, Ulysses arrives at the reception, as does Trish’s estranged husband, Don. Ulysses cuts in on Frankie and Steve dancing and begins kissing her. Don learns Ulysses had sex with Trish and starts a fight, but Steve tries to break it up. Ulysses falls into the swimming pool and short circuits. Dr. Peters pulls his head off to set the restart button as the reception guests look on. Soon, headlines around the world announce the existence of Ulysses, “the lovesick android.” Before long, the entire world is experiencing “android-mania.” At Chemtec, Ulysses says he is in love with Frankie, but Dr. Peters promises he will feel differently once he is in space. Frankie and Steve Marcus make up and go to the press conference about Ulysses’s space mission. Before the conference begins, Dr. Peters takes Frankie aside, chastising her for what she did to Ulysses. He tells her that he spent years programming Ulysses to function alone in space, but now the only thing he can think about is her. When reporters question Ulysses, he charms them to the point that Steve Marcus thinks he could run for president. Frankie is saddened to hear Ulysses say he is no longer lovesick. Ulysses also says he is not frightened to go into space alone and that humans are trained to be frightened because they cannot attend to their most basic need, which is loving and caring for those who love them. While Ulysses poses for pictures, he and Frankie stare longingly at each other. Shortly after the space ship launches into space, Frankie sulks at home eating ice cream, when Dr. Peters comes to her door. She hugs him, saying she misses Ulysses terribly. When Dr. Peters kisses her and says he loves her, Frankie realizes she is actually with Ulysses. Meanwhile, in the spaceship, Dr. Peters, pretending to be Ulysses, tells mission control he is excited to go on this journey alone because he is not very good with people.