Product: What Women Want [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 3.0
See it with your girlfriends, but spare your boyfriend
What can I say? Ladies will most likely love this movie, and men will most likely not. Funny, romantic, but ultimately sexist and insulting, "What Women Want" is not the movie you should suggest on your first date. Cheer it on with your girlfriends, but spare your boyfriend or husband this "relationship test" and watch "When Harry Met Sally" instead.Mel Gibson plays a charming yet chauvanistic man who suddenly finds he has the ability to read women's minds. At first overwhelmed, Mel uses his gift for his own personal gain, yet gradually he learns to understand and love women, and in the end he is stripped of his undesirable male qualities and falls for the film's "every-woman", Helen Hunt. Gibson's subtle performance provides the only personality in this entire film, keeping it from becoming a dry, sexist political statement. This includes a beautiful dance number to Sinatra which recalls Estare and Crosby (this scene was entirely Gibson's idea). The other performances, including Helen Hunt's, all fall along the lines of "the universal woman" vs. "the universal man." Basically, all the women Gibson interacts with are the same woman, just at different stages in her life. All the men are deceitful, uncaring, or clueless, save for gorgious hunk Gibson who "changes".Fans of this movie might claim that Gibson's highly chauvanistic character lends some balance to the male-bashing, but they fail to realize that healthy men and women are offended by both. Consider: not only does this film's "perfect man" look like Mel Gibson, but he can read minds as well. Not even the real Mel Gibson can meet those standards. The "romantic" ending of this film has Gibson kissing the heroine right after she fires him. Our hero. I find it funny that the trailers for this movie showed some derrogatory scenes against Arab women which were cut from the film (pre-Sep 11) for obvious reasons. It highlights the basic nature of this film.