What Women Want

What do women really want? The title of this film, starring Mel Gibson as Nick Marshall, and Helen Hunt as Darcy Maguire, begs the question. While we laugh at the slapstick antics, enjoy the sharp-witted dialogue, and celebrate the metamorphosis in Nick’s character, we are on the edge of our seats waiting for the answer to this age old question.

Nick Marshall, the ultimate man’s man, is trying to gain a better understanding of women in order to improve his job performance as an advertising executive. The more he knows about women, the better his chances are for success. Therefore, he takes it upon himself to try out – and try on – various products that are designed for women. It is hilarious to see him scream like a girl as he pulls a wax strip off his leg. (Secretly, we would love it if every man would experience this kind of pain!) And as he jumps up and down in a vain effort to cram himself into a pair of control top pantyhose, we enjoy watching him struggle being so far out of his own element. We can’t help but smile at the women’s candid, uncensored thoughts and the razor-sharp one-liners peppered throughout the script.

Finally, this film offers the memorable choreography of Nick dancing solo, with a top hat, against a colorful backdrop of the city skyline at dusk. Then, through a mysterious event involving his hair dryer, spilt bath beads and a bathtub full of water, Nick inadvertently gains the uncanny ability to hear women’s thoughts.

The most obvious attribute Nick Marshall shares with Jesus is that he is able to hear our thoughts. This can either be comforting or disturbing. If you are in an Adam-and-Eve point in your life – you’ve just eaten the fruit and now you know you are naked and you feel the need to hide – then knowing that God hears your thoughts would be rather disturbing. I get that. I’ve been there.

However, if you have come to see God as a trusted friend and a welcome participant in every conversation you have, then knowing He hears your every silent prayer is pretty awesome. Most of us are probably somewhere between those two extremes. I pray that by the time we get to the end of this book we all can feel good about knowing that God hearing all of our silent hopes, dreams, fears and prayers.
Rather than focus on an obvious shared attribute, like Nick’s ability to hear women’s thoughts, we will take a look at the qualities he develops by the end of the film.

For much of the movie, Nick is an insensitive, selfish manipulator. I can’t bear to watch the way he uses his newly found gift to ingratiate himself with Marisa Tomei’s character, Lola. He proceeds to shamelessly take full advantage of her sexually, ultimately breaking her heart.

It is truly unfortunate that this kind of thing happens in real life. There are too many women who are lonely, needy, and all too willing to grasp at the smallest indication that someone might be “the one.” There are far too many men who make it their ambition to learn how to manipulate women into bed. I pray that the Surprising Truth will help you, dear reader, not be a Lola.

Thankfully, by the end of the film, Nick is changed. In fact, he becomes What Women Want. He ends up as a man who is self-sacrificing, honest, caring, loving, sensitive, expressive, and interested. It is a common theme in Chick Flicks – this idea of a man changing from a scoundrel into a “great guy”, and perhaps it is the change itself that inspires us.

It is the kind of man he ultimately becomes that captures my heart. The three Christ-like behaviors that Nick displays in a sequence near the end of the movie are:
• He intercedes
• He intervenes
• He initiates reconciliation

Readers:
Do ever wish you had someone to intervene for you when you are in trouble? Do you ever wish someone would be the one to initiate reconciliation? Tell me about when you feel that way...