What Women Want Review

by "Mark O'Hara" (mwohara AT hotmail DOT com)
December 30th, 2000

What Women Want (2000)

Want to be satisfied that you got your money’s worth out of a movie? The striking thing about Nancy Meyers’ WHAT WOMEN WANT is that as a romantic comedy, it gets the job done.

No, it’s not important or profound, and it does not even have a solid ending. But for the 126-minute run of WHAT WOMEN WANT, I was entertained.
Mel Gibson is to be admired for trying his hand at so many different genres. So well known for his epic revenge films BRAVEHEART and this past summer’s THE PATRIOT, as well as for the LETHAL WEAPON series, Gibson here takes the chance at failing at the risky chemistry of romance. But he does not fail. In its initial minutes the film does a nice job of explaining Nick Marshall – Gibson’s character: he’s a misogynistic pig, a politically incorrect relic whom women find irresistible. We discover that he was raised by a mother who was a showgirl in Las Vegas, and he grew up surrounded by situations demeaning to women. This does not excuse his behavior as an adult, of course, but seems to predict a noticeable change in his sexist persona by picture’s end.

A star at Sloan Curtis Advertising in Chicago, Nick is divorced (the small part of his ex played by Lauren Holly), and has a 15 year-old daughter (Ashley Johnson). He’s not been much of a dad, though the artifice of his daughter staying with him for a while sets him up finally to spend time with her.

What jolts him out of complacency is Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt), who is hired by Mr. Wanamaker as the new creative director of the ad agency. (Alan Alda does one of the many cameos, as Wanamaker – a wonderfully fluent performance.) So the stud Marshall has to play second banana to this younger woman.

One of the factors responsible for the fluff factor is the premise of reading women’s minds. For some reason involving fate and electricity, Nick is electrocuted – though not fatally – and acquires this at first overwhelming talent. Of course his life changes drastically, as he adjusts to the weirdness; Meyers makes ingenious use of the idea, especially when Nick is bombarded by the inner worlds of every female he comes across, even the mental minutia of a French poodle! Once he can cope, will Nick use the power for good or evil – or both? It certainly does not make for a believable movie, but it is an interesting one, a story which would fascinate James Thurber or other writers preoccupied with the “war” between men and women.

One gripe I have is the film’s over-exposure. I have seen theatrical trailers at least five times in the past two months, and countless television ads. A problem here is that contemporary previews give away so many of the best parts of the film. What’s worst is that a key word from the script (by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa) is actually changed – cleaned up, I suppose – before the clip was run on TV. It would have been nice to see some more surprises among the memorable moments.

Mel Gibson is becoming very proficient at his craft. He carries so many scenes here with his dogged attitude and good humor. In scenes in which he clowns to a Sinatra song, flipping a fedora from his foot onto his noggin, Gibson is charming. Ditto when he dances with a coat rack. But he is still no Cary Grant. Gibson’s timing is good enough, though he seems uneasy in a few scenes. No star is worth more than 20 million dollars a picture, so there is no question here, but this star does turn in a solid performance.
And so does Helen Hunt. Although director Meyers permits the camera to linger a bit long on Hunt’s aquiline face during her reaction shots, and the script gives her the word “OK” to utter too many times (as she did in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, in which she also dated an older man!), Hunt registers another reliable performance here.

A subplot with Lola (Marisa Tomei) goes just about nowhere. It’s funny that I did not blame Nick Marshall for leading on Lola – at the same time he was falling in love with Darcy. It occurs to me now too that Nick could have been portrayed as more conniving as he undermined Darcy's authority in her new job, even stealing her ideas. Instead, Nick comes off as a rather benign rascal; even his daughter’s girlfriends like him after he tailors his behavior upon hearing their mental condemnations.

Good Christmas season fare: that’s WHAT WOMEN WANT. It’s a lark and a laugh, nothing heavyweight – though neither is it mindless pap. Like the commercialized products you see around this time of year, the film has had any substance removed to please the most general audience

_________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

--

More on 'What Women Want'...


Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.