Product: What Women Want [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 3.0
Review by a Guy who subscribes to the Alphabet of Manliness
First, the bad things: formulaic chick flic. Make that CHICK FLIC. The other bad thing, is Helen Hunt is as dry and unappealing as always (she sleepwalks through her performance, I'm not sure she ever felt pain at all when she was "acting" emotionally distraught). In addition, there aren't enough laughs to keep a guy interested when his girlfriend/wife makes him watch this. In addition, the "thoughts" that women have in the movie are both far too PG and PC to be believable, and any man who swallows that crap is doomed. This is what women would like to think of themselves thinking, not what they really think about most of the time (not that I would know, which is the point, right?). Alan Alda smarms his way through another role where he can't stop calling attention to the fact that he is Alan Alda. Would someone take up a collection for some acting classes for this lame-O, please?The good things: Mel Gibson gives a stunning performance as a man's man advertising executive who must reinvent himself as a meterosexual when his new boss arrives (Hunt) and starts dropping the Swedish Bikini Team advertising techniques to go after women-customer target accounts. This is delightful tension and a delightful plot twist.Director Nancy Meyers does a superb job, both in framing shots and making the visual narrative match the script and tone setting of the dialogue. There is some flavor of Chicago in the film which adds to the aura.But the best thing Meyers did, other than her mistakes with Alan Alda and Helen Hunt, is the casting. All the secondary women characters have real women's bodies, not the faux emaciated size zero everyone has defaulted to expect in films nowadays. For example, Delta Burke is featured in a role where her curves are simply normal both in relative and absolute terms to all other women characters. This was an excellent decision, and Meyers is amply rewarded with excellent performances from cameo and secondary characters alike. No one need ever fear that this film will promote body type anxiety.The movie is a bit overly long, and therefore the rather abrupt closure of the film appears a bit tacked on in response to going over budget or beyond shooting schedule. But all in all this is a stomachable film for those guys who have to sit through a chick flic every now and them with your slampiece. My wife had to watch "Scareface" with me in exchange, so it was a pretty good trade.