Never Seen It, #190 of 200: What Women Want

No games. How do I get that in? She's running. It's early, it's quiet. Just the sound of her feet on the asphalt. She likes to run alone. No pressure, no stress. This is the one place she can be herself. 200 films she's never seen before. Look any way she wants, dress, think any way she wants. No game playing, no rules. Games, sports, rules. Games, sports, rules. Playing by the rules. Playing games versus playing - Playing by the rules. Playing games versus playing.

What Women Want

2000

Nancy Meyers

My memories are vague at this point, and unprovable in the years after deleting my Facebook and all the crowdsourcing blog-related FB statuses disappeared in a wisp of smoke. But I recall that my old friend Sarah asked some general questions about why these particular movies were on this particular list, how I had decided that these 200 were the ones I needed to see, whittled down from the billions of films that I'd never seen before. Specifically, she asked about What Women Want. Why in the world was I proclaiming to the world that I felt a strong impulse to watch a 20-year-old film fronted by one of the outspokenly terrible actors in Hollywood?

I don't remember how I responded. Probably some variation of "it ain't that deep." Retroactively, though, I have thoughts about why a film like What Women Want might end up on a list of films that I haven't seen but would like to. There is a certain type of movie that has what I'll call a "conceptual hook." Not necessarily something about the details of the story, but more so how the story functions in the film. Off the top of my head, the two relatively recent movies that fall in this category from NSI are Rashomon and Sliding Doors. I knew, before viewing a single minute of the film, how these films functioned. I knew that Rashomon was the same story told multiple times from different perspectives, and I knew that Sliding Doors was two separate narratives told at the same time that each splintered off from one single action happening or not happening.

Now, those are true landmark films as far as "structure" is concerned, whereas the conceptual hook for What Women Want is more related to the plot, but I'd argue it's the same reason for putting this film on the list. Basically, I knew What Women Want was about a guy who could hear women's thoughts. That's literally all I knew, too. The concept intrigues me. There's a difference between concept and execution, of course. But even if the execution is poor, then the concept still justifies the act of forcing myself to watch it. The concept explains why it's on the list, while the execution is an explanation for why I did or didn't like the movie. What I'm trying to say is that the concept alone is enough to justify the viewing. Even if the film is dogshit.

I would say that the execution of What Women Want's intriguing concept was... pretty okay! Surprisingly so, perhaps. Look, we're always gonna run into these questions when an actor Mel Gibson is the star of the show. Is it okay to watch this film at all? Let us not rehash the woke cancel spiel that I made for the last movie, and let's just say that, for movies, it's more complicated than music. If a musician is a domestic abuser, I just don't listen to that music. If the star of a movie is a domestic abuser (among other vile shit), does that mean you can't watch the film? I try to look at a film like the work of hundreds of people, collectively, and maybe it's not the worst thing in the world to watch a film in which only one of those pieces is a piece of shit. Would I watch a film like Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson? No. Does it get tricky if Mel Gibson's production company co-produced What Women Want? I guess! I dunno, man, sometimes I just get tired of all this. If you think that my watching this film means that I agree with Gibson's abhorrent views, then maybe we can take that conversation off the blog.

Where was I? Oh lord... right, right, the execution of the "high-minded" concept of "man can hear women's thoughts." Yeah, definitely not as bad as it could have been. Gibson plays a gross lothario named Nick. Nick is a big-time misogynist who works at an advertising firm. After a pantyhose-related accident, he gains the magical power of hearing what women are thinking, as they think it. An uncredited Bette Midler convinces Nick that this is a superpower, and so he uses this superpower to gain the upper hand on Helen Hunt's intimidating Darcy Maguire and give Oscar winner Marissa Tomei the best orgasm of her life. Nick's relationships with the women in his life—a quasi-estranged daughter, the women in the break room—noticeably improves. And so on.

I think the "hearing women's thoughts" hook could work well as a metaphor for the importance of strong and open and honest communication. Yes, yes, it could easily be framed as "men just don't listen," and What Women Want dabbles in that more often than I'd prefer. I'm just saying that this idea has potential. Communication between friends, lovers, family members, whatever, is so goddamn important, and it's something to be actively worked on throughout the life of a relationship. Having a cheat code for communicating might give Nick Marshall an opportunity to reflect on the importance of connecting with other people in this way, even when the superpower disappears in a burst of electrical sparks in rainy alleyway in Chinatown.

I don't quite get the sense that this is what actually happens at the conclusion of What Women Want, which is probably why the film is fine and not great. I suppose that we're supposed to think that Nick is better at communicating now, as proven by the prom-night conversation he has with his daughter in the bathroom stalls. But then he shows up at Darcy's house, and I'm not really sure I even understand the gist of this "grand romantic gesture." Darcy fires Nick, but wants to be his girlfriend, so we learn that, what, men are vulnerable and should be more easily forgiven, assuming that appear sorry and manage to give a little puppy dog frown? It doesn't feel like the film hit its target with that ending.

It could be that I'm a little sensitive about this idea of "forgiving men" just simply due to the fact that this is Hollywood's argument regarding Gibson himself. "Oh, it's been ten years, and the poor guy has been locked out of the movie industry, and he's weally sowwy, now just let him make movies again!" What exactly has Gibson, and by extension Nick, done to warrant forgiveness? I'm not the one in charge of forgiving, so I can't say for sure. But it feels like maybe there are very easy ways to misinterpret what What Women Want is trying to say. Or maybe I'm not misinterpreting this shit at all.

And there are plenty of other flaws littered all around this thing. The '90s gender politics are outdated at best. Nick becomes a changed man way too quickly. Tomei's final scene is a travesty that I won't even get into here. But through it all, the concept kept me going. I know it's stupid to defend such a stupid plot device, but I can't help it. I really am intrigued by the idea of mindreading. And I really do think that, in a better movie, this could've worked real well to highlight something sublime about the human condition.

As it stands now, it just helped Mel Gibson get laid. Oh well.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: We watch Willow, which I'll say right now is NOT the reason we named out first child Willow. But wouldn't that be fun, to name your child after a film you've never seen before.