I wish! But this film is basically on that theme!

What Women Want is an all round feel good film. There seemed to be a need for a film like this, as most films these days seem to be violent etc, with an exception from About a Boy and Bridget Jones Diary. This film fits into these kind of descriptions, the film being plain acting, no real special effects and a love story involved. This story has a twist though, the main character can hear what women think! How good would that be guys, actually listening to what your girlfriends thinking, or listening to what that girl in the corner looking at you is actually thinking, however, you’d have to take the good with the bad!

This is a novel idea for a film, and as far as I know, it hadn’t been done before. It’s a fantasy, plain and simple, but that doesn’t stop you from enjoying the film just because it isn’t ‘real’ and can’t be done. The way it is done is pulled off well in the film.

The film was directed by Nancy Meyers who also directed ‘The Parent Trap’. She has also had roles in the filmography of ‘Father of the Bride Part II’ and ‘Baby Boom’ and a few more, and looking at her list, most of the films there are comedy and are in basically the same boat in the way they were written and directed as What Women Want. The budget for the film was $65m. I should think that most of this budget went on the actors themselves and the people involved in making the film! It did very well for a film of its type in the cinema though. Taking $182.8m in the US box office (that’s like triple its budget!) and £17.1m in the UK. It was also released in France, Germany and Spain, and did quite well from each of the countries, as far as I can see.

Mel Gibson stars as Nick Marshall. He’s an executive at an advertising firm, who’s rivals seem to be doing a bit better than the company he works for! To call
Nick chauvinistic would be an understatement! He generally thinks that he is gods gift to women! Nothing more nothing less. He get’s a surprise one day when he find’s out that another executive, from the opposing company has been offered a job in his company! Let us introduce Helen Hunt starring as Darcy McGuire. Darcy has a lot of knowledge about the advertising industry. She knows how to get the attention of women like no man does, and this is what the company have been lacking. Nick is having none of it though, thinking he can do better.

Darcy gives all the board members a project, she gives them a box of various different womens bits and pieces (lipstick, suspenders etc) and asks them to come up with a way of selling the product directly to the women, using what a women wants to hear. Well, Nick thinks this is gonna be easy, so that night he decides to feel like a women! He tries all this stuff on, much to the disgust of his daughter Alex (Ashley Johnson). As he’s doing this, he has an accident and falls over, nearly electrocuting himself with a bath and a hairdryer. Then comes a corny line as he tells himself a certain percentage of accidents happen in the bathroom, and then, oh how I really didn’t see this one coming, he slips into the bath, the hairdryer in the air comes falling down into the bath, ultimately electrocuting him!

He wakes up to a strange world. He has voices in his head, they are coming from women, and a dog! He soon finds out he can hear what women think. He tries to tell his mate, but his mate is having none of it. However, after a while, he thinks he can use this to his advantage. He doesn’t want to loose his place at the top of the company to Darcy, so he uses what shes thinking to sell advertising campaigns to the boss, the boss thinking he’s great and Darcy thinking shes on exactly the same lines as him. He also, obviously, starts to fall for Darcy. He’s found another way he c
an use his ‘powers’ or his ‘gift’ aswell. He can be the genuinely nice guy to girls. He knows what girls want! He knows when a girl wants you to say something sympathetic and all the girls start to love him, he can get into the mind of girls, and that’s something us blokes would absolutely love to do sometimes, even though what we hear probably wouldn’t be all that great, but hey.

I’m not going to tell you any more of the story, this is only the first half an hour of it anyway, so I haven’t told you that much, just given you the general idea. I didn’t think I would like this film to tell you the truth, that’s why it has taken me so long to get round to watching it. I just borrowed it off my mate actually, I wasn’t willing to shell out my hard earned money for it, I’m being such a scrooge at the moment because I want a new car! The film actually surprised me though, making me laugh, pulling me into the story, and most importantly, making me enjoy it all the way through. (There are so many films I just turn off during!)

What makes this film what it is is probably Mel Gibson. Now to me, Mel Gibson can play any role with ease. He’s a very good actor and seems to know exactly what the director wants and just does it. He has played many a different role, and I don’t think theres one film where he has disappointed me. Helen Hunt on the other hand I have never really liked. She just seems to annoy me for some reason, whether it’s the roles that she’s played or her voice, I really don’t know. I find her strangely sexy, but not really all that attractive, she’s a strange one for me, but even then, in this film she played her part well. The other roles in the film play their roles good aswell, there doesn’t seem to be any cheese going on, even though the actual storyline is cheesy to say the least. A mention must go to Ashley Johnson who played
the part of Nick’s daughter. She’s the same age as me, 21 now and played the role of a teenage daughter excellently, hardly ever cracking a smile! I thought she captured the role excellently and just reminded me of my sister and many more girls of the age range she was playing!

The soundtrack is good, as they normally are in films of this genre, capturing the moment with a good tune! The music is varied, from Frank Sinatra (Who really does my head in by the way!) to What a girl wants, Christina Aguilera. The soundtrack fits into place perfectly and I wouldn’t mind a copy myself. Some other tunes included are:

Night and Day – The Temptations
Bitch – Meredith Brooks
I got you under my skin – Frank Sinatra

This film for me was unlike any film I had watched for a while, and I still have it, even though it’s my mates and wouldn’t mine giving it a second viewing if I get the time one day. Trouble is, I have quite a few DVD’s on my shelf which I haven’t yet watched! I’d recommend this film to people who like films such as ‘As Good as it Gets’ ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ and ‘Bridget Jones Diary’. It’s along the same kind of lines, with it’s own twist, and I’m going to give it 4 out of 5. A film that surprised me, so it’s gotta be worth watching!