Techtite's DVD Reviews!

What Women Want

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A Techtite Review

The Film : It's amusing how a quote you never heard in your entire life, is suddenly a "well known" quote, as long as it sounds cool as a movie title. Suddenly, Freud is not only well known to have "always" asked the question, of What Women Want; it's supposed to be the biggest question, that he always asked. I'm not a major Freud fan, though I've never heard this before. Oh, well...Whatever. At least it's a movie starring Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt and others, and at least it has its funny moments.

The story involves an ad exec named Nick Marshall (Gibson), who was raised by a bunch of Vegas showgirls. This supposedly has made him very chauvinistic, and as such he must learn a very good lesson. In a freak electrical accident, he wakes up the next morning to find out he hears every single thing women are thinking. At first, this drives him totally batty, particularly when walking in the park and hit with a barrage of thoughts from a swarm of female joggers. All this is supposed to be ironic, you see, because he never listened to women's problems much at all. Now, he has to.

This turns out to be the least of his problems. A spunky newcomer to the ad company, Darcy Maguire (Hunt), has taken the job promotion that he thought he would receive. He was turned down because his boss (Alan Alda) realizes Nick has no touch with what women really want. As a result, he always loses the "big" advertising deals, that wish to sell to both men and women. We see this early on, when Nick's only thought for a lipstick commercial is a man being caught by his wife with lipstick on his collar. Darcy will hopefully change all that for the struggling company, with ad ideas that sell to the female audience they're intended for. That's presuming, of course, that Nick doesn't start reading her mind, and steal her ideas before she can pitch them!

There are some intriguing jokes in this story, of course. This includes when he tries to hear what two of his most perky assistants (Valerie Perrine and Delta Burke) are thinking, and he realizes why they agree to everything he says; they don't have a single thought in their heads. Moments when he's still a "letch" lead to him using his mind reading to get a cute girl in his favorite coffee shop (Marisa Tomei) to finally go out with him. However, the joke is on him, when he doesn't keep her romantic interests too well in her apartment, and he finds her thinking, "Gee, I wonder if Britney Spears is on Leno tonight?"

The problem I had with this film is that it doesn't seem to know which direction it wishes to go. The best idea is to stick with either chauvinistic undertones, or feminist (or, dare I say, neither). This film wants to have the best of both worlds...and fails at almost every turn. If Nick is supposed to be a letch, then have some fun: go all the way on the concept! Have him be played by Danny DeVito, portraying his 1980's Louie-Dapalma-from-Taxi persona with style. If, by contrast, this is to be a "chick flick" (as men so delicately referred to such films), then shouldn't the women be thinking a little something more intelligent than, "Gee, did he catch me looking at his crotch?"

Don't get me wrong. Reading minds of the opposite sex is a cute film premise. It probably could have been done with flair by a director like, say, Harold Ramis. His film, Groundhog Day, brilliantly showed the ups and downs of living the same dull day over and over again. Bill Murray's Groundhog character first had evil fun with the idea, then slowly used it for something worthwhile. Director Nancy Meyers seems to want to approach What Women Want in the same way, though something is lacking.Many parts of the film seem over-edited, presuming these possible "missing scenes" were ever filmed at all. No matter how you slice it, the ending in particular looks completely cut, edited, redone...and, quite frankly, debatably ruined.

Any film that is, at once, feminist and chauvinist, is not unlike the typical metaphor of a half-filled glass. It's up to you if you wish to look at the result as either half-full or half-empty. I, myself, would have to choose the former, if only because of acceptable performances by Hunt and Gibson, and amusing bit parts by Bette Midler, Tomei, Alda, and others. It equally includes more than one or two amusing jokes. However, people who like a laugh-a-minute type of slapstick farce, might be very disappointed. This film makes too many flip-flops between feminism and chauvinism, to please both groups more than half the time. For me, at least, "half" was enough.

The DVD : This is one of those DVDs that's a tough call; it has its share of bonus materials, yet still has some feeling of lacking, whatever that may be. Commentary (as in, the typical audio track), is performed by director Nancy Meyers and Jon Hutman, the production designer. There's also a behind-the-scenes featurette, although such featurettes are often far better in a film that required a lot of special FX (like Superman) or required more epic cinematography (like Schindler's List). In this case, the featurette seems merely to remind us that --hey, cool!-- the movie stars Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. However, admittedly, it is always a treat to see them as-is and out of character.

In addition, there are exclusive cast & crew interviews. Personally, I like this feature, not unlike the interviews included in the vastly under-appreciated The Whole Nine Yards. In that DVD, you got to see interviews of major cast members, as they were asked intriguing questions both related and not-so-related to the film. It makes for a very intriguing extra on any disc. However, aside from this, the featurette itself, and the original theatrical trailer(s), that's about it. Whether that's enough to buy the DVD is up to you.

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