What Women Want is a film starring
Mel Gibson and
Helen Hunt where Mel plays a ladies' man in desperate need of a
reality check. How guys like this ever get laid is forever a mystery to me. This movie indicates it's because women never say what they feel. In my experience, being a divorced male, I'd have to disagree with that. However, I can accept that in the environment where the story takes place, an advertising firm in Chicago which is a field still dominated by men even today, women who spoke their mind wouldn't get very far. I was willing to
suspend disbelief for this film, because even if they sometimes got the syntax wrong, what the movie was trying to say was very astute.
A lot of men have at one time or another wished they could hear what a woman was thinking. However, they usually think that with the belief that they would like what they heard. We would be wrong. Though I think when John Gray said "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus," he was of course speaking metaphorically and out of context it's been taken to too much of an extreme, the predominant difference I notice between men and women is this: Men Hear. Women Listen. Communication is the most important thing in any relationship. Men and women do it differently. If a guy just slowed down now and then and put his machismo aside, he wouldn't need to get electrocuted by a hair dryer to find out What Women Want. However, by the same token, sometimes a woman should act first and think later. Know whut ah mean, Vern?
I dunno. I liked this movie. I didn't love it, but I would have loved it if Hollywood would learn to take some chances. I was disappointed with the ending, for example. I will try not to go into too much detail why because I don't want to ruin it for people who haven't seen the movie. Hollywood just has this sad tendency to want to force a happy ending when sometimes there really shouldn't be one. I mean Mel Gibson plays a schmuck in this film. And he learns during the film that he's a schmuck. He deserves far more than he gets, let me put it that way. The fairy tale ending just didn't work for me. It reminded me too much of You Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The whole idea reminded me of Jim Carrey in Liar Liar where he played a schmuck attorney who could only tell the truth for one whole day. This movie was largely formulaic and strived to be a chick flick that men could tolerate. I think it succeeded, but Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow did a much better job of that, and it was more creative. I think this is one area where independent film just beats Hollywood hands down. I would like to have seen What Women Want done outside of Hollywood. I think the results would have been much better.