"When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking."
-- Elayne Boolser
Remember back in grade school when we were taught the 7 wonders of the world? Well they misinformed us. Any man will tell you there is a puzzling 8th wonder of the world. Something that we spend everyday of our lives to figure out but never completely do. This 8th wonder is of course women. Just like David Lynch prides himself on making incoherent films, women pride themselves on making our lives confusing. It will never be clear to men why women do the strange rituals they do or why they play those silly games that drive us crazy. In the same sense men need women and vice versa. Women are what make the world go round. They are our rock in this crazy place we call Earth.
But that age old question still lingers. What do women want? Freud tried to figure this out and died still confused. One would have to get inside the female head to be able to completely know what every woman wants. Just think of how lucky a man would be if he could hear the thoughts of women. Oh the possibilities!
With this one joke concept, director Nancy Myers delivers to us a very charming romantic comedy properly titled What Women Want. The film is vastly different from a lot of the cinema of today’s society. It’s not a thought provoking movie since there is no complex plot to deal with. It’s also not stupid because it is too sweet natured and carefully crafted to become so. This is the kind of film Hollywood used to always give to the audience fifty to sixty years ago before the country became too filled with political correctness and self conscience. The main characters always had unlikable qualities but made up for them with a charm and presence above anyone else. Cary Grant and Fred Astaire made their fortunes playing characters like this.
What Women Want brings in Aussie Mel Gibson to show off his undeniable charm and he does a marvelous job. He plays Nick Marshall, the typical character found in the old classic comedies. The middle aged playboy who can not get enough of the ladies. It will take a strong woman to make him find the goodness inside of them. In this case that woman is Helen Hunt, playing smart career woman Darcy Maguire.
Nick is a high power ad executive at a struggling ad agency. His life has gone into a tailspin since his boss, Alan Alda, has decided to hire a strong woman, Hunt, as the next top associate. Gibson feels he was shafted.
While at home trying to think of ways to impress the new female honcho Nick has a freak accident. Once he awakens he is no longer normal. The thoughts of millions of women in the Chicago area are charging at him everywhere he goes. Why would this accident give him this new power? Why is he able to only hear women’s thoughts but not men? No one said this film was logical. No one said it was not fun either.
Nick uses this new power to his advantage. He is able to make love better, as we see with him in bed with Marisa Tomei. He is also able to form a better relationship with his daughter (Ashley Johnson). His main prey though is Helen Hunt. His original plan is to steal all of her ideas while reading her mind. This way she will not last a month in the job he should have. We all know what is in the future for Gibson and Hunts characters. It is nice to see them sparring at the beginning and slowly falling for each other. It has a kind of Hepburn/Tracy type quality.
The jokes just keep coming at us making What Women Want one of the funniest and sexiest movies of the year. The most hysterical scene in the film can also be seen in the trailers. Gibson is trying to get in touch with his feminine side and waxes his legs. He does fine until the time he has to yank the cloth off and then falls back into the wall screaming bloody murder. I laughed uncontrollably during this scene. It even gave me an idea. Maybe I could get some of this leg wax and try it so I could write an Epinion from a man’s point of view. Then I thought, forget it. It’s like Gibson says in the film after he does this crazy deed, “Women are insane!”
The only real nitpicking I have with this film are the facts that it runs too long and that many of the characters are very underdeveloped. Marisa Tomei has a very limited presence in the film. Even Bette Midler shows up but only for about five minutes as a shrink who examines Nick. There is also a very unneeded subplot about a troubled co-worker whom Nick must help since he can read her mind. This just tests our patience a tiny bit and throws the film off course. But if we really think about it, the old classics did not have great character development but made up for that with tremendous charm. What Women Want is just a homage to that. People who complain too much about this film are not respecting the very style of filmmaking that ruled Hollywood in the early years.
Whether you respect director Nancy Myers or not you have to admit that she does a good job in what she does, creating mindless and pleasant films like this and 1998’s version of The Parent Trap. Who better for her to work with than Gibson? More than anything, the man is the quintessential movie star. His talent is undeniable and unmatched. What he delivers here is a amusing tour de force full of brilliant physical and emotional comedy. The man even gets to strut his dancing steps as he throws on a top hat and imitates Fred Astaire to Frank Sinatra’s “I Won’t Dance”.
This film really makes you think. Is a power such as Nick’s a blessing or a nightmare? Do we really need to know what goes on in the heads of the opposite sex? Isn’t it a great challenge to try to figure that out ourselves? The great things in life take work, especially love.
One thing this film made me think of is a theory I developed some years back. That theory is that women are like Twinkies. Have you ever had a Twinkie without enough inner filling in it? It seems empty and not as good. Women are the same way. A woman can be the most beautiful person in the world but without the proper amount of inner filling she too is empty. A woman’s inner filling consists of her heart, mind, and soul. Once we, like Nick, learn that listening is the biggest part of getting to know someone, it is easier to find that special someone.
Director writer and producer Nancy Meyers's THE PARENT TRAP sophomore directorial effort is a lively screwball fantasy featuring Mel Gibson in his fir...More at Family Video
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