Many Hollywood land has given birth to various melodramas. The most interesting of them are those in which a man, we will speak bluntly, a womanizer and a bad person (alpha male), as a result of plot twists and turns, becomes a sensitive, deeply moral person.
Simply put, a spiritual revolution takes place with the hero. We’ll talk about one of these films in our article, namely: “What women want.” Actor Mel Gibson played a major role in it.
Alpha male
The film begins with the fact that you see Nick Marshall. He is a typical modern man and don Juan. The psychological background of Nick’s success in women is immediately revealed. A man was actually brought up among dancers, so he learned to manipulate ladies well, without really understanding them. It still comes around to him, and in the very near future. This is the childhood of the hero. The film “What Women Want” is the focus of attention.
N. Marshall works as an advertiser in one large agency. His specialization is “men's advertising”: girls in bikinis and so on. He is obsessed with sex and women. In his portrait at the beginning of the film, the main thing is that he treats women as things, in a word, consumer.
Nick gets a “click on the nose” from a woman
Nick feels that life is a success. He is counting on the post of creative director in his office. And then he was called by the head of the company - Dan Wanamaker (Alan Alda) and said that he was taking a woman to the post of creative director - Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt). In order for the reader to understand the scale of her personality, the newly-minted leader Nick is as cool in advertising as Robert de Niro or Al Pacino (or Mel Gibson) in the movie.
What a blow for Nick! And the thing is that he does not know women well, and the fair sex (or rather, goods for them) brought the advertising business $ 40 billion last year. So Dan decided to try Darcy, and Nick only got a friendly pat on the shoulder. This is how the girl from the movie “What Women Want” arranges for womanizer. Actor M. Gibson plays it gorgeous!
Relations Darcy and Nick. Hatred
On the fly at the new boss, all members of the creative department are given the task: to advertise purely female things. Nick from resentment at the meeting in every way shows his disregard for Darcy.
And yes, a very important detail. Although Nick is successful in women and earns well, the viewer sees that as a person he is so-so. Marshall is lonely. He is divorced. Nick's daughter does not love him and considers his father an insensitive blockhead. In short, Mel Gibson creates an image of a typical male male on the screen at the beginning of the film. The film “What Women Want” is directed against this anthropological type.
In the evening of the same day after the meeting, Nick, having thoroughly gathered wine, nevertheless decides to work and reflect on how to present the female set to the consumer. It consists of nail polish, hair gel, pantyhose, mascara, wax for depilation, bra, funds from black spots on the face, bath salts.
Nick decided to try all these things for inspiration on himself. As a result of all the manipulations, Marshall is like a transvestite.
The piquancy of the situation is that in this form the father finds the daughter, and she came with the guy. Nick is uncomfortable, Alexandra too. When the daughter’s boyfriend (Eric Balfour) runs away from the huge apartment of the strange father, the parent and his son quarrel. And as a result of an accident with a hairdryer, Nick is shocking. Waking up in the morning, he discovers that he hears the thoughts of women.
Marshall's relationship with the thoughts of women. Despair
At first, the main character thinks that he was cursed. He tells only a few people about the opportunity that happened to him. Of course, few people believe him. He even tries to reconstruct the events of that memorable evening, and he is even secondarily shocked, but to no avail - he still hears the thoughts of the girls. Ways of despair lead him to the office of a psychoanalyst. The specialist is a woman.
Revelation of Nick Marshall
She tells him that he is the chosen one. According to her, Freud died without knowing only one secret: what women want (actor Mel Gibson played perfectly in the movie of the same name). And to him (Nick Marshall) this gift fell right into his hands. He can become a vehicle between those on Venus and those on Mars.
As if confirming the fantastic luck of the protagonist, the next meeting of the advertising department happens. At it, employees discuss the ideas that they had in connection with women's everyday items. And then Nick hears the thoughts of the female employees and passes them off as his own.
Advertising for Nike. Relations with Darcy are getting warmer
An order for advertising women's sports shoes comes to Nick and Darcy's company. Nick, who knows about the true needs of a woman about as much as a philology student about higher mathematics, begins, without a twinge of conscience, to fumble in Darcy's thoughts and pass her ideas off as his own.
It’s a paradox, but the more Nick gets into Darcy’s inner world, the more he likes her and the better he understands women in general.
In the end, he is preparing a stunning project for Nike. Everyone is thrilled. Even Darcy, who did not expect Nick to be such a sensitive and wonderful person. Contact with the existential experience of the opposite sex made the brutal man a little feminine. He has become much more human.
Darcy's departure from the company and the spiritual transformation of the hero
In turn, Dan Wanamaker, realizing that Nick did all the work on the Nike project, repents before him. The boss says something that shakes Marshall to the core - he fired Darcy. Nick is in despair! He confesses that the ideas were not his, that it was Darcy and only her.
Dan does not understand what is happening, but nevertheless agrees to hire a former creative director.
And of course, it all ends as it should, fairy tales have a happy ending. Nick runs to Darcy, confesses to her, as before God. It touches her. Heroes bathe in each other's tears. It all ends with a savory kiss.
Funny lines of the film: Nick-lover and Nick-father
Promoting the idea that a man hears the thoughts of women, neither the director (Nancy Meyers) nor the scriptwriters could get past the topic of sex in the film. A couple of Mel Gibson was composed by actress Marisa Tomei. She played a crazy employee of the coffee shop - Lola. It is also noteworthy that Lola is a young, always promising actress. Getting to know Nick is strategically important to her.
The date scene of Nick (Mel Gibson) and Lola (Marisa Tomei) is the funniest in the film.
Of particular note is the line of "fathers and children." First, Nick, frankly, father is negligent. Over time, he increasingly understands women, and hence his daughter Alexandra (Ashley Johnson). If you can put it figuratively and metaphorically, then Nick before the accident that happened to him, was for his daughter an outsider, a stranger. And in the finale of the picture, her father became her best friend.
Despite the joke, the picture “What Women Want” raises many questions that are still relevant in the relationship of the sexes. True, I must say that they will always be on the agenda. For example, questions about understanding, acceptance, tenderness, sensitivity, and not only between a man and a woman, but also in general in the relationship of people.
The same director has a wonderful film “Love by the rules and without” (2003). It is very similar in style to What women want (2000). The main characters are also middle-aged. The fate of the old bachelor and womanizer Harry Sanborn (he was brilliantly played by Jack Nicholson) is in the center of attention .
He meets only with the young. If a woman is over 30, then she is an old woman for him. In short, the male consumer, as well as the protagonist of the film “What Women Want”. Actor Mel Gibson gave us this wonderful image.
Then, by chance, Harry meets his girlfriend’s mother and ... the same pattern: from hatred to love, and in addition, the spiritual revolution of the protagonist. Viewing is strictly required. In addition, it seems that the film "Love by the rules and without" is made better and has gathered more stellar cast. And this is despite the fact that Brooke Elliott does not play in it.
Films are united not only by one director, but also by a common idea - some transcendental female dream that a bad person (man) will become good, but at the same time preserve the unconditional charm of the bastard.