What this woman wanted (What Women Want (DVD))

Member Name: indychick_uk

Product:	What Women Want (DVD)
Date:	30/10/01 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: funny, no sex or violence, a romantic comedy in the best traditions

Disadvantages: Chick- flick?

What Women Want - it certainly is!!

Well it's got Mel Gibson being a caring "New Man", lots of jokes at the expense of me and a soppy love story - what more could a woman want?

The story is a fairly simple one - Gibson plays a sucessful advertising executive who is described at the very start of the film as "a man's man". He's a charmer but, as his boss (Alan Alda) comments "you can't get inside a woman's mind - you can get inside her knickers better than anyone I know - but not her psyche",He can charm any woman he meets and chat them up successfully but he is also a chauvinist who doesn't understand any of the women in his life as we are told at the outset by his ex-wife, his daughter, his co-workers and his cleaning lady.

Then a female executive from a rival firm (Helen Hunt) is brought in to take the top job he thought was going to be his - he finds himself working for a woman and determined to undermine her and get "his job" back.
Let battle commence...

Then follows the funniest scene of the entire film - in a bid to prove he can "think like a woman", and fuelled by copious amounts of red wine, Gibson tries out a range of "female products" he has been given by Hunt to work out ad campaigns for. Picture Mel Gibson in his bathroom with red nail polish (fingers & toes), moisturising lipstick, pore cleansing strip, hair volumiser, support tights and - best of all - a home leg waxing kit. At this point myself and my two girlfriends couldn't breathe for laughing and I don't think we stopped laughing till the end of the film.
It is at this point that he has a typical household accident involving bathbeads, a bath of water and a hairdryer - and wakes up to find he can hear what women are thinking.

There are some truly hilarious moments in this film in addition to the legwax scene - Mel Gibson admitting to being gay, his
daughter choosing her prom outfit and also some tearful touching moments chiefly with his daughter and the office messenger who it turns out has thoughts of suicide.

I have to say that the film starts slowly, one of my fellow viewers said afterwards that 20 minutes in she was beginning to think we'd picked a dud - then it launched itself with a vengeance.

Is it a "chick-flick"? Well, I admit that a lot of the jokes are based around what women REALLY think of men and when I saw it at the cinema it was the girls who were laughing loudest, but my husband watched it on DVD and he certainly laughed.

It is a pretty typical Hollywood romantic comedy but it has the advantage of a pretty original idea, some very funny dialogue, some good old fashioned slapstick, a soundtrack which includes Frank Sinatra and Alannis Morisette - oh yeah, and Mel Gibson. The rest of the cast are fantastic as well - particularly Helen Hunt & Alan Alda. Actually the play off between Hunt & Gibson, and the almost innocent quality of the film was reminiscent of a Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn film.

So if you're looking for a pleasant evening's viewing and a good laugh then go rent What Women Want.

I guarantee that any women will find a man waxing his legs hilarious - and I would ask any man out there to go do it, this is one of those pains you can share with us......unlike PMT and childbirth.

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