Flak Magazine: Review of What Women Want, 12-21-00

What Women Want is a light, star-powered Hollywood romantic comedy that says, in short, that the road to success for women (or most women, or some women) is more uphill than it is for men, that overcoming both cultural expectations and cultural disenfranchisement is a hard fight to win, that women face additional pressures in traditionally male-dominated areas of society because they’re up against a fisheyed yardstick, and that being able to enter a mutually beneficial love relationship isn’t a bad brass ring to reach for. Of men (or most men, or some men), it says they tend toward self-absorption and are easily caught up in self-aggrandizing gender roles that most women see through but endure for any host of reasons, most of which spin off from the basic point that they don’t have much choice.

And so you (or, at least, I) have to ask: What’s wrong with that? It’s not a complete rendering of the breadth of men, or women, or human emotion, and it’s not considerably more revelatory than saying men are from Mars, etc. — but just because it’s not the whole truth doesn’t means it’s not some of the truth, and saying that it’s not true is demeaning to those people, particularly women, for whom it is. Which is why the critical crucifixion of the film is so headache-inducing.

Whether stars Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt have any chemistry is an almost entirely subjective question, as is whether the premise (an electrical accident allows Gibson to read the minds of women) works without becoming overstretched. Negative answers to those questions are a firm foundation from which to dislike What Women Want — and my positive answers to them are a good part of why I like the movie. What’s so interesting, however, is that the crux of a lot of reviews of the movie reads like this one from Elvis Mitchell in The New York Times:

Ms. Hunt gets all she can out of her chin-up querulousness, but like all the women in What Women Want, she’s nice despite her reputation as a tough dart. It’s this lack of definition that seems truly negligent; it seems that what women want is to show that they’re all sweethearts. If the movie had the courage to show that women are complex people, it would be a much more inspired picture.

Translation: Because Hunt’s character acts tough but is nice beneath, she “lacks definition” and isn’t “complex” — which I’d say is bunco, but my opinion aside, is Mitchell suggesting the leading lady of a movie like What Women Want not be fundamentally nice? Isn’t the central premise at play in romantic comedies that you like this man and this woman so much that you want them to be together? Mitchell’s quote finds a nice companion in the following passages from Stephanie Zacharek’s review in Salon:

The women who work with (and mostly under) [Gibson’s character] both tolerate him and swoon over him, confused creatures that they are; they grumble over having to do his filing, but they fairly crumple with delight when he pays them a compliment or bumps into them accidentally.

The leading man of a romantic comedy is a charming cad? Heaven forfend. I’d better trash my copies of Some Like It Hot, It Happened One Night, Groundhog Day, Jerry Maguire ...

It’s a movie draped like a pampered courtesan around that most basic of women’s fantasies: the idea that a man will change for her, as the direct result of nothing more than coming into contact with her very essence. Of course, men learn from women all the time (and vice versa), and sometimes they do change. But [the filmmakers aren’t] deft or smart enough to just give us a fanciful joy ride.

At least one of the leads in a romantic comedy changes “as the direct result of nothing more than coming to contact with [the other lead’s] very essence”? There goes my deep and abiding affection for Bringing Up Baby, When Harry Met Sally, Out of Sight, Defending Your Life ... Of course, I don’t need to argue this point because Zacharek herself cedes it, saying that the movie’s problem isn’t that so much as it is that the getting there isn’t “fanciful” or “joyous” enough. If that’s the issue, however, why make a point of dressing up the central conceit of romantic comedies in such rags?

If the final vision of What Women Want is at all grounded in reality, it’s almost too depressing to think about. Women want men to listen to and understand them, and they also want men to tell them what they want to hear.

What? Swap “women” and “men” around in that last sentence, or replace “women” with your name and “men” with the name of someone you care about, and tell me which of those three iterations is so untrue that it’s “too depressing to think about.” Telling those you care about “what they want to hear” is a tricky strategy to uphold all the time because deceit and dependency can sneak in, but What Women Want isn’t suggesting that so much as it is the importance of being pliant and supportive.

I’m not really in the business of picking apart other critics’ criticisms, in part because I suspect I know what I’d be in for if the favor was returned. I’m also certainly not going to suggest to a male friend experiencing female trouble that he rush to go see What Women Want because all will be made clear, and neither is the movie one of my favorites this year. But it is a suprisingly good Hollywood romantic comedy (five words that rarely go together anymore) with excellent performances across the board and a very sharp script (courtesy Josh Goldsmith, Cathy Yuspa, Diane Drake and Meyers) that’s both funny and well-structured. It’s not fully realized, to be sure — if 90 percent of directing is indeed casting, well, then Nancy Meyers still has somewhere around 10 percent to go — but its gimmick is not only gracefully sustained and made believable, it’s integrally tied into the character relationships.

In other words, it’s a delight to watch. And though it’s not on par with the other romantic comedies mentioned in this review, or even with other American achievements in that field this year, it’s a very worthwhile incarnation of a genre I consider to be Hollywood’s backbone. When musicals were popular, that was Hollywood’s best face: fantasy presented like a confection, often with great stories and no shortage of insight to the human condition, but always with some degree of rapturous transcendence. What Women Want doesn’t deserve that kind of verbiage, but at its best moments — the very best of which, tellingly, is a musical number — it’s a kind of fun that can best be described as old-fashioned.

Does that make its gender politics old-fashioned, too? Apparently, it’s a point about which reasonable people disagree, but I’ll hazard a prediction that audiences will recognize what truth it does proffer and love it for it. I’ve dismissed better-made, better-loved films than this on all sorts of grounds, but mainly because I found them false. What Women Want features real, recognizable human emotion at work, which sets it apart from much of its undercooked competition.

— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)