Review: What Women Want

We will begin the reviews at Bad Movie Mogul with a movie those who know me personally won’t expect. Today we are looking at the film What Women Want (2000, Director: Nancy Meyers, Written by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa).

The movie opens with Gigi (Lauren Holly, looking distracted) explaining how her ex-husband Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is ‘a real man’s man’ in a voice-over narration detailing how Nick grew up the son of a single-mother Las Vegas showgirl, raised by scantily-clad women and coarse men. This is a very cute bit as we watch a young Nick cooed over by showgirls and taught how to count by a casino cashier. Unfortunately, it was damn near the highlight of the film.

We cut to Nick as an adult bachelor ad executive in Chicago. Through brief scenes with his maid and his entry into his workplace we learn that he is a successful ad executive expecting imminent promotion to creative director. We also learn that he is boorish, crass, sexist, and totally self-absorbed. He reports to his boss, Dan (played by Alan Alda) to learn that he is not going to be the next creative director. Instead, the company has hired a woman named Darcy (Helen Hunt) to focus on the $45 billion woman-focused advertising market. Nick has heard that Darcy is a ‘man-eater’, etc., and does not want to work for her, but goes about his business. Darcy is introduced, gives all the ad execs a box of products, and sends them on their way.

In a rather funny sequence, Nick goes home and tries the various products by personal use. Soon he has volumized hair, red fingernails, is wearing pantyhose, and has learned that waxing your legs sucks. Hard. He is surprised by his daughter (Ashley Johnson), who is staying with him while her mother re-marries, and his daughter’s boyfriend. After some confusion and meant-to-be-funny moments, Nick is alone in the bathroom again. And in the key point of the beginning receives a near-fatal electrical shock from a bathroom accident. After waking up, he soon realizes that he can hear what women are thinking, letting him know what women want….

I started with this movie because I think it is a good example of how a seemingly can’t miss idea can quickly become a Bad Movie. The premise of a chauvanist who gains the ability to hear what women think of him has a lot of prospects for comedy. Helen Hunt, seen here shortly after her roles in As Good as it Gets and Twister, was box-office gold, and Mel Gibson never fails to deliver. Yet, somehow, What Women Wants is ultimately a failure.

This is a wonderful role for Gibson. With his charm and warmth he is able to take the very one-dimensional character of Nick and actually make him sympathetic. With his portrayal of Nick you realize that Nick acts the way his does with a total absence of malice; he doesn’t dislike women, he just doesn’t realize the effect of his words and actions. When he does learn how women see him, he doesn’t like it and, eventually, tries to change. Without Mel I think this movie may have been unwatchable.

I was totally underwhelmed by Helen Hunt’s portrayal of Darcy. While Ms. Hunt is a fine (and Oscar-winning actress) this movie points out her main failing – a lack of range. Darcy is described many a time as a ‘man-eater’, a ‘bitch’, the ‘Darth Vader of advertising. As a high-powered executive in the hyper-competitive world of advertising, you would expect her to be an aggressive, take-charge professional. With her portrayal, however, Darcy never seems to rise above hopeful confusion. While much of this can be chalked up to poor writing (which we’ll discuss later), the fact of the matter is that Gibson suffered from the same flat characterization and acted his way into a fleshed-out character. Hunt suffers greatly in comparison.

On the other hand, a lot of talent was wasted in throwaway roles. Bette Midler, who has great comic potential, is seen very briefly as a therapist. I was instantly hopeful that we would see a series of vignettes of Nick and his therapist – nope. She’s seen once and vanishes. Marisa Tomei also appears as a lovelorn coffee-shop girl in a role that actually paints Nick as treating women badly after he knows how to treat them well.

And that brings us to the writing. Darcy is repeatedly referred to as ‘a man eater’, aggressive, etc. And, again, you would expect a successful ad exec of either sex to be a go-getter. Instead, Darcy is portrayed as fearful, hesitant, and tentative. Even when we ‘hear’ her tell herself to be assertive, she says and/or does nothing, making her aggressiveness and ‘informed attribute’*. When an underling (Nick) seems to be going strong with an ad campaign, she doesn’t do what a creative director would do (“run with it, send it to me for approval and input”), but just wanders around the edges fitfully, letting him take all the credit and refusing to actively participate. When Alda’s character announces he has fired her it seems fitting – she did nothing to assert herself or control the situation.

The character of Nick is also inconsistent. Totally self-absorbed at the beginning, he treats Tomei’s character shabbily after he tries to improve and after he knows that his actions will hurt her. And his method of ‘making it up to her’ is to pretend he is gay, rejecting all responsibility for what he has done.

The ending (I won’t say conclusion) is a total loss. Nick’s gradual transformation to a caring person does not include being just to Darcy until a sudden last-minute conversion – after he is already in love with her! Darcy gets her job back because Nick gets it back for her – she is totally passive. His reward is to be fired by Darcy for telling her the truth. Although he transformed her unspoken thoughts into slogans, did the work of creating the ads, etc., he is a cad for doing so and is punished for admitting it. But then Hunt’s character ‘saves’ him.

I guess my biggest problem about this movie is, interestingly, its portrayal of women. Darcy is totally passive. Even after firing Nick, she immediately calls him back to join her life. None of the other women ever confront Nick for his bad behavior. The character of Erin, a mousy girl contemplating suicide because she is ignored, never does anything. Nick breezes in, offers her a job (which gives her a reason to live) and she vanishes again. Nick’s daughter Alex (another female character with a masculine name) goes along with her boyfriend’s desires to have sex until the last minute. She does say no, but is devastated emotionally and needs rescuing by Nick. Rather than displaying the reconnection of Nick with his estranged child, it paints Alex as totally dependent upon men.

My next biggest problem is in its portrayal of men. When Nick learns what women wants be begins to act more like how the writers think women act. He no longer watches sports (or actively dislikes them), cries at TV shows, ‘hangs out’ with ‘the girls’, and otherwise also becomes passive. The clear message is that men are insensitive cads and the only way to be ‘good’ is to reject the masculine. Seemingly men can’t like sports, be strong-minded, and be decent to women at the same time. The writers constrain people to being jerks or wimps with no middle ground of maturity.

A wholly unsatisfying experience, despite some early humor.






*All special Movie Nomenclature courtesy of the High Priest of Jabootu