I will admit up front that I had reservations about the new Taraji P. Henson led gender flip comedy What Men Want. While I love Henson, and would gladly watch her in just about anything, the trailer made this out to be a movie about an unsuspecting woman, the victim of misogyny and gender politics, who gets inside the heads of men to find out they are all jerks, and uses her power to beat them at their own game. That’s what I was expecting. Instead I got a thoughtful dive into the diverse world of men’s thoughts through the eyes of a less than perfect woman. It was also hilarious, and the crowd was practically rolling in the aisles through most of the film.
The film is a gender swapped update on the 1990s rom-com What Men Want, in which Mel Gibson plays a oafish, frat bro man child douchebag who uses women and generally devalues their contributions while claiming to just be an innocent man’s man, but learns through the course of trying to sabotage the hard working and talented Helen Hunt that he’s had it all wrong. It was funny and charming, in a 1990s sort of way, but the end message was that he had it wrong. Not only are women smart, equal and worthy of his time, the woman he spent his time trying to destroy was in fact much better at his job than he was. He throws himself at her mercy and comes clean when he sees the error of his ways, deciding doing the right thing is more important than keeping his job. It was a nice little teachable moment, though a little cringe-inducing to modern eyes.
Fast forward to 2018. Henson plays a high-powered sports agent gunning for partner in the boys club of her fancy Atlanta agency. When she’s passed over for promotion to a doofy frat bro type, Henson is convinced it’s solely because she’s a woman. When she later gains the power to hear men’s thoughts, she immediately attempts to turn it to her advantage, with some hilarious results. But where the movie really hits its stride is when she discovers men aren’t all pigs, that they in fact have a complicated myriad of thoughts. They have fears. They’re self-conscious. They hate their bodies. They want to be loved, and to be safe, and to be trusted. And many of them don’t care for Henson because she’s standoffish and selfish. Now, of course, there are some reprehensible men in the film that are simply jerks. Because let’s face it; many men are jerks. But the overarching lesson, that there’s some common ground to be found when we stop and listen to each other with a real attempt to understand, is what elevates the movie for me. There are several moments in the movie when Henson is stopped short by a hard-hitting critique (in men’s internal thoughts) that she doesn’t expect. She keeps expecting the internal voice to always be a slam at her gender, but most of them focus on her attitude and behavior. It forces her to re-think how she acts and what she values, in much the same way that Gibson’s character is forced into the same revelation in the original.
Part of me wants to share some of my favorite scenes, but they are best experienced unspoiled, so I won’t reveal anything. There is one standout performance in the film other than Henson’s. Josh Brener, who plays Henson’s young, gay assistant with dreams of moving up in the company is a real winner. His comedic timing is perfect, and his physical comedy is understated but well-executed. His chemistry with Henson – two very different people who nonetheless seem to work as a single unit – is wonderfully quirky. He owns the role to the point where it’s hard to imagine slotting someone else into it. But everyone gets a scene to shine in the movie, and everyone who is meant to be funny is very, very funny.
If you’re looking for a night of laughs that also seeks to subvert stereotypes at a time when stereotypes seem to be all movies are constructed from, give What Men Want a shot.
