What Men Want (2019)
(On TV, April 2022) This is going to sound reactionary (and I’ll assume the consequences for it), but I find it striking that when telepathy comedy What Women Want came out back in 2000, it was seen as an attempt (however imperfect) to make the pressures imposed on modern women more understandable to men, effectively becoming a film about female empowerment. So, logically, a gender-flipped remake called What Men Want should take a look at the pressures affecting modern men and make them understandable to women, right, right? Haha, of course not – Even in following a woman who can hear men’s thoughts, the script has been rejigged so that the female protagonist gets everything she wants from overhearing evil men’s evil thoughts. There is no exploration of modern masculinity here – a few jokes about what men don’t want others to know (including a closeted gay male, naturally) but otherwise the deck is rigged against our female protagonist and the mind-reading thing is about her triumphing over the (misogynistic, discriminatory, racist, sexist, systematically oppressive, etc.) system. As usual in gender-flipping premises, there’s no real pretence at equality here – it’s blunt-force male critique without nuance, subtlety or even compassion. Maybe we’ll get to something looking like true equality in a few decades. Given that this review is so far right out of the reactionary right-wing playbook (I swear I’m progressive… but I get annoyed sometimes – in a world moving away from unipolar white maleness, equality is a multi-way street), you could be forgiven for assuming that I disliked What Men Want. But I actually didn’t – it’s hard to resist Taraji P. Henson when she’s in full outsized-personality mode, as she is here playing a sports agent with difficult clients. While What Men Want sports the broadcast-by-BET-channel stamp, this film is a full step above the (rather endearing) low-budget made-for-BET movies that regularly air on the channel – it’s got decent production values, an acceptable script (notwithstanding the previous 200 words of cranky kvetching), name actors and a sufficient budget to meet its ambitions. It’s rough on the edges, but the dialogue occasionally has a good quip or two. The pacing is controlled well, and even a few dumb script tendencies (such as over-explaining what’s happening, or being suspicious convenient as to when our protagonist can or can’t hear men’s thoughts) aren’t enough to extinguish the overall good fun of the exercise. This is meant to be a comedy, after all, and it nails the breezy tone essential for it. Erykah Badu seems to be having a ton of fun playing a psychic with some psychedelic assistance, while director Adam Shankman is an old hand at keeping it all under control even if some odd extraneous subplots still distract from the core of it. While I do have a lot to say about What Men Want’s shortcomings, it’s pleasant enough to watch – but don’t expect anything particularly memorable. Well, except for the wedding scene.
