What Women Want

Starring: Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt

RS: Not Rated

2000 Comedy

What Women Want concerns Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson), an oinking skirt chaser at a Chicago ad agency who magically acquires the power to hear women thinking. It comes in handy when new boss Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) accuses Nick of not knowing how to pitch products to females, and not so handy when he hears women downsize his talents in bed. Hey, wait a minute, we're talking Oscar watch for this cream puff? You bet. Back in 1988, Working Girl - another office romp - won five nominations, including one for Best Picture. It helps that director and co-writer Nancy Meyers grounds this comic moonbeam in canny human observation. And Gibson, flashing megawatt charm, has never been funnier, looser or sexier. He dances with a coat rack, duets with Sinatra and does his own product research by painting his toenails, waxing his legs and wiggling into pantyhose. Go, Braveheart! While Darcy teaches Nick that love is more than boinking, a terrific cast, including Marisa Tomei, Alan Alda and Bette Midler, keeps the laughs coming. Women is the naughty-and-nice romantic comedy we've been missing all year. It has "winner" written all over it.