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What Women Want

2000, Movie, PG-13, 127 mins

What Women Want: Review

WHAT WOMEN WANT
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If the idea of Mel Gibson in black pantyhose and a Wonderbra strikes you as appealing, then this romantic comic fantasy from director Nancy Meyers (whose screenwriting credits include the remakes of FATHER OF THE BRIDE and THE PARENT TRAP) most definitely wants to come into your life. If not, well then, "Houston, we have a problem." WHAT WOMEN WANT is a wildly overblown, unpleasantly smirky mess of a film. Bachelor cad Nick Marshall (Gibson) is catnip to the ladies and a hotshot at a huge Chicago ad agency. After what seems like an interminable set-up, two major upheavals shake his life: The promotion he thinks he deserves goes to reputed bitch Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt); and a freak bathroom accident somehow gives him the ability to read women's minds. Unsurprisingly, over the course of the rest of the film (which only seems to last for weeks), Gibson comes to realize the folly of his insensitive macho ways, and he and Darcy metaphorically ride off into the sunset. Any similarity to GROUNDHOG DAY, in which another unlikable character is ultimately redeemed by love in a vaguely supernatural manner, is obviously intentional. This film has the unfortunate side effect of making you remember that Bill Murray is much funnier than Mel Gibson. Gibson's in full hyperactive, Three Stooges mode here; the maniac cop he plays in the LETHAL WEAPON series seems like a poster boy for Prozac-induced placidity by comparison. The rest of the actors — including Marisa Tomei and Bette Midler (in a funny unbilled cameo) — do what they can. But Meyer's direction is ham-fisted — there's hardly a scene that isn't embarrassingly underlined (let's just say there's a lot of thunderclaps and lightning) — and the script's sexual politics are so sniggeringly anachronistic that Rock Hudson and Doris Day would be shocked. leave a comment --Steve Simels
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LOVING SEX: More of What Women Want / More of What Men Want Combo
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