Review of What Women Want (2000) by Bengel W — 11 Aug 2013

Interesting concept for a movie and I think the message provides both wisdom and stupidity. Women are often seen as frivolous, thoughtless people by men and, other than sexually, men don't pay much attention to their ideas or actions. However, while some of the women (Darcy and Erin, for example) had profound and interesting thoughts, most of the women didn't have much going on up there and seemed to concern themselves mainly with calorie-counting, material possessions, their appearances and small personal problems. A movie like this is allowed to have vapid, stupid women, but they shouldn't be everywhere.

Many things about this movie were stupid; the way he got his "powers" (a bathtub full of women's products and electricity? Really? Really?), Bette Midler, the last scene with Gibson and Hunt which was full of weird awkward pauses and cheesy dialogue, cheesy dialogue in general, Bette Midler, the fact that Judy Greer really isn't ugly except for her "nerdy" glasses, Bette Midler, you get the point... Also, there are obviously plenty of chauvinistic men in this world, but would any of them seriously be sexist enough to lose millions of dollars at their job in an ad agency purposely ignoring women as a market and never selling any women's products? Even in the 50s almost half the commercials were targeted to women! I'm pretty sure that in 2000 it would be common knowledge to any company that women are big consumers and that if you don't sell to them at all you are a moron. So the premise was not at all believable. I think the movie would have worked better with Alan Alda hiring Darcy for her superior credentials instead of her gender.

Surprisingly, despite Mel Gibson's psychopathic off-screen persona, he is more believable as a kind, respectful man than as his former chauvinistic self. His misogynistic remarks at the beginning were uttered so quietly and unconvincingly that I couldn't believe his initial character was a bad person.

Most of the time hearing women's thoughts was funny and entertaining and the writers made some nice jokes out of the situation. I thought I would be more offended by the sexism of this movie, but I think the people making it had good intentions. I found the romance between Nick and Darcy really boring and I would have liked to see more scenes with Lola, Erin and the other minor characters. I liked that they talked about how some men don't pay attention to women who aren't at a certain level of attractiveness, like the way Erin is ignored by almost everyone at her workplace. It reminded me of the recent tearful interview with Dustin Hoffman about making Tootsie.

Overall, a cheesy, stupid movie with some good laughs (and occasionally some good ideas).