“What Women Want” wants to be a comedy about a man who can hear women’s thoughts. It ends up being a comedy about a man who learns to pretend he hears women’s thoughts. The film stars Mel Gibson as Nick Marshall, a high-powered ad executive who gets zapped by lightning and suddenly picks up the voices in his head. The premise is simple and silly, and the movie commits fully to both sides of that equation.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
The Lightning Strike
The setup works. Nick can’t help overhearing everything a woman thinks, and the film leans into the absurdity of that. He knows exactly what his boss’s wife is thinking about her husband, what his co-workers think of him, and what his clients want before they say it. It’s a gift that lets him win pitches and dodge awkward questions alike.
The Voice Problem
The problem is that the film doesn’t know what to do with the gift once it’s given. It spends most of its runtime showing Nick using his power to manipulate situations, and it never asks whether that power is actually useful or just a trick. The movie treats his ability as a tool, not a character trait, and that flattens the central joke.
Meg Ryan’s Turn
Meg Ryan plays Darcy McGuire, a rival ad exec who takes Nick on as a client. She’s sharp, competitive, and funny, and the film gives her some of its best scenes. Her frustration with Nick’s obvious advantage drives the plot forward, even when the script around her stops caring about the stakes.
The Romance Plot
Nick and Darcy fall in love, and the film tries to make that romance the point of the story. It doesn’t quite land. The romance exists to give Nick a reason to stop using his power, but the film never fully explains why he would need to learn that lesson from a woman he barely knows. The love story feels like an afterthought tacked onto a plot about a man who can read minds.
The Running Gag
The film’s biggest running gag is Nick’s inability to hide his knowledge. He knows what a woman is thinking before she says it, and he can’t stop himself from blurting it out. This is the funniest stretch of the movie, and it’s the part that earns its PG-13 rating. The jokes about sex, marriage, and career ambition land because they’re honest about the tension between what women think and what men assume.
The Message Problem
The film’s message is that Nick has to learn to listen to women. That’s a fine idea. The execution is less fine. The movie suggests that listening means pretending to agree with everything a woman says, and that the key to success is reading her mind better than she reads her own. It’s a message that doesn’t hold together.
The Comparison
| Element | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning setup | Funny, clever | Brief |
| Meg Ryan performance | Sharp, grounded | Underused |
| Romance plot | Romantic | Unearned |
| Message | Flawed | Misleading |
The Verdict
“What Women Want” is a film with a great setup and a weak center. It’s funny in patches, especially when it’s playing with the idea of a man who can’t stop hearing what women think. It’s unfunny when it’s trying to be serious about that same idea. The film wants to be a comedy about gender and power, and it settles for a comedy about a man who can read minds. That’s a smaller ambition, and it’s a smaller movie.
“I’m not a mind reader.”
That’s the line that sums up the whole film. Nick pretends he can read minds, and the movie pretends that pretending is the same as understanding. Neither is true, and neither is particularly interesting.
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