For a good example of why comedy has become such a difficult profession at a time of shifting norms and heightened sensitivities, look no further than "What Men Want." Featuring Taraji P. Henson as an ambitious career woman who acquires the power to read men's minds, "What Men Want" is a remake of Nancy Meyers' "What Women Want," which featured Mel Gibson as a suddenly psychic chauvinist. This would seem to be a simple case of updating an old, male-centric movie for our female-conscious moment. As director Adam Shankman, his team of writers and his unmistakably talented cast discover, that turns out be harder than it sounds.
Henson plays Ali, a sports agent at a testosterone-fueled firm where success goes hand-in-hand with locker-room talk and poker-night prowess. Ali doesn't have the right chromosomes, so she compensates with extra hustle, drive and focus. Named for a certain boxer whose picture hangs in her Atlanta loft, Ali is a ferocious competitor.
So, what's the problem? According to this film it isn't widespread sexism, but Ali. She takes her devoted assistant, Brandon (Josh Brener, stopping just short of gay caricature), for granted. She flakes out on friends (Wendi McLendon-Covey, Tamala Jones and others). She's thoughtless in bed, as one hapless conquest, Will (Aldis Hodge), discovers. In short, she's selfish, aggressive and insensitive.
Are these classic female faults? I'll just go out on a gender-stereotype limb and say: No. What we have here, then, is not a gender send-up but a general learn-and-grow fable, along the lines of "Groundhog Day" or "Liar, Liar." What Ali learns, after a knock on the head allows her to hear men's thoughts, is that she has a people problem, not a male problem.
"What Men Want" has painted itself into a corner, and the cast is trapped. Henson remains a class act; Tracy Morgan, as the father of a young ballplayer, plies his gift for free-associative improv; and the singer Erykah Badu, as an eccentric psychic named Sister, is almost worth the ticket price. Nevertheless, "What Men Want" always seems to be dog-paddling against cultural currents.
One final question: Care to guess what men turn out to be thinking about in this movie? That's right _ sex. Mystery solved.
