The premise of What Women Want is that a womanizing
man is given the ability to read women's thoughts. What a great
gift. Now he'll know exactly what to say to get women to sleep
with him. Now he'll know exactly what to do when they get in
bed. Now he can have revenge against his new female boss, who
he feels stole a job that was rightfully his.
It's an interesting premise, but a dangerous
one because it could easily fail on so many levels. First of
all, we need a main character that is slimy enough that we recognize
he desperately needs a clue, yet we need to like him enough
that we hope he gets one. In clumsier hands, the main character,
Nick Marshall, could easily be completely unlikable.
It's also important that the film not dwell
on the source of the mind-reading ability. We know its absurd
that a man can get struck by lightning and gain the ability
to read only the thoughts of women (much less survive). A lesser
script would have spent screen time trying to explain the phenomenon.
That same script might have also have made
Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt), Nick's newly appointed boss, into
a villain. Instead, she's a normal person who's just doing her
job, and Nick exploits that. It's not her that needs to change;
it's Nick's perception of her that requires changing.
The casting of Mel Gibson as Nick Marshall
is perfect. Gibson is well known as an action hero, but he is
also comfortable mocking himself. Not many of Hollywood's testosterone
crowd could get away with prancing around in pantyhose and eyeliner,
but somehow this star of Braveheart makes it work.
Perhaps the only flaw in the film is the handling
of one of the side-stories. A young woman in Nick's office feels
underappreciated and unnoticed and contemplates suicide. Nick
hears her thoughts and feels he needs to help her. The set-up
works and we feel genuinely concerned for this girl, and then
the resolution falls flat. I feel it was either necessary to
expand this girl's story a little more, or drop it from the
film entirely. But it's a minor flaw and doesn't seriously harm
the film.
