It's taken me a while to watch What Women Want; I wanted to see it a long time ago but never got the chance. I thought the concept was a novel one at the time - a sort of fantasy movie about what would happen if a man finally got the chance to understand women by hearing their thoughts. It seemed like a feel-good comedy at the time.
I don't know why the distractions put me off of it so long, but I'm not sure it was worth the wait. I borrowed this one from my co-worker, and I watched it. It was cute; that's it. First off, I don't know how many times one man can survive electrocution, but Mel did it three times losing only his sanity, arguably, in the process. Second, Helen Hunt's character (Darcy) struck me as a complete pushover most of the time. Third, the writing wasn't that great at all, and a lot of potentially funnier scenes were dumbed down or edited funny, I don't know which, by awkward pacing and cheesy lines. There were some funny parts, like when Mel danced like Gene Kelly to a Sinatra tune and tried on women's clothing or when Bette Midler cameoed as a shrink, but otherwise, it was altogether predictable and even a little too cheesy or saccharine for my liking.
My rating: 6 out of 10 (which means cute, or a lukewarm feeling toward the movie). The test: will she be buying it? The answer would be no. It wasn't all barrels of laughs for me. This woman doesn't want it.