What Women Want

Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a confident successful executive who thinks that he is gods gift to women. He’s surprised to find that he gets passed over for promotion in work and the job is given to a woman named Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt). Nick is pretty put out by this and decides that he’ll do his best to get her out of her job.

During a freak electrical accident however Nick discovers that he can now read women’s thoughts. While this will help him with his plans for Darcy it also makes him realise that women don’t think of him the way he assumed they had. This leads to some major changes in Nick’s outlook on life and women.

Video/Audio

The film is presented in a 1.85:1 Widescreen Anamorphic format. Picture quality is very good with no visible problems, a sharp picture and lively colours. The audio track is in Dolby Digital 5.1, the style of the film makes it very front focussed but it still sounds very good. When the surround channels are needed they are used effectively. Also if you like Frank Sinatra then you’ll love the musical score as Frank is featured throughout the film.

Extras

There’s a 15-minute featurette titled The Making Of What Women Want. There isn’t really much “Making Of” here, there’s a few interviews with cast & crew but there’s also some major spoilers for the film and I wouldn’t recommend viewing until you’ve watched the film.

The second featurette is called What Women Want: A Look Inside. This is about 12 minutes long and basically more of the same, although it does give more background to the film and is less of an extended trailer.


The Audio Commentary track is by Director Nancy Meyers and Production Designer John Hutman. It’s a reasonable commentary but certainly not the most interesting I’ve ever heard. There are quite a few large gaps where nothing is said and most of the talking comes from Nancy Meyers. Finally there are two Theatrical Trailers.

Overall

I have to say that before watching this film I didn’t have very high hopes for it. From the blurb that I’ve read it looked like it was going to be a bit of a Chick Flick. For the first 70 – 80 minutes or so I was proved wrong however as it was full of great comedy especially from Mel Gibson. For this first period of the film the gags keep coming and the plot progresses really well.

If the film ended there I would have been a happy man. Unfortunately from this point on there’s forty minutes or so of dragging slow storyline and the sudden disappearance of any comedy elements. What’s left for the remainder of the film is the total Chick Flick that I was expecting from the start. It’s a shame that it wasn’t cut to about 90 minutes long as I think it would have worked. For me though it felt like it was trying to be too many things for too many people without really getting it right for any type of viewer.


As for the DVD itself, both picture and audio quality are very good and there’s a reasonable selection of extras. The disk comes in an Amary Case with a glossy sleeve inside listing all chapters. All menus are nicely animated and the film is split into seventeen chapters. The only subtitle option is English, although there is a French audio track.

With such a disappointing second half to the film I don’t think I can award it more than 2.5 out of 5. If you’re a fan however or enjoy a more romantic film then you’ll probably get more out of it and I certainly can’t complain about the presentation of the disk itself.