What Men Want

Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Josh Brener, Tracy Morgan, Phoebe Robinson

Director: Adam Shankman

What men want is no mystery, and What Men Want doesn’t treat it as such.

This retread of a tried (and often tired) formula is filled with surprises and fun, and has heart to balance its raunch. We open with Taraji P. Henson as Ali Davis (her father, a boxer, wanted a boy), a sports agent who has proven her worth time and time again, but has yet to be made a partner. Aiding her in this task is her assistant, Brandon (Josh Brener, who absolutely kills it). Brandon is her human planner, garbage can, and de facto best friend, and has aspirations of his own, which Ali continuously ignores or puts down. No, Ali’s one goal is to land their sports agency a new client: up and coming basketball player Jamal Barry.

It speaks, I think, to the strength of the movie’s plot that we almost forget fifteen minutes in that at some point, Ali is going to be able to read mens’ minds. It’s funny enough and interesting enough that I would have almost been satisfied with a movie about Ali and Brandon doing whatever it takes to get this client. But the movie kicks into a higher gear at a bachelorette party with the arrival of Sister (Erykah Badu, channeling the energy and peril of a Los Angeles bus stop during slow hours to great effect). Sister has no clue how her magic works and it is unclear if she has any power at all or is just tripping, and this does wonders for keeping the movie’s momentum going. There’s no protracted sequence where the movie skids to a halt and explains to its producer how the magic works. They don’t know. Sister definitely doesn’t know. Maybe Ali has “the shine?” Who cares?

The only thing that is clear is that she hit her head at the club, and when she awoke, she could hear mens’ thoughts–starting with her attending doctor’s substance abuse problem. She then, to the chagrin of Brandon and herself, gets an earful from Brandon’s mind about how inconsiderate she is. And, of course, has a random man psychically shout that Michael Keaton was the best Batman.

This brings unexpected twists and turns that I don’t want to give away. A lustful coworker may not be lusting after whom Ali thinks he is. One coworker is an unexpected enemy; another an unexpected ally. The movie tries its hand with the Liar Plot, which Roger Ebert often would call the Idiot Plot–Ali pretends a handsome single dad named Will (Aldis Hodge) is her husband to impress Jamal’s father/agent, Joe Dolla (Tracy Morgan). Joe Dolla explains he’s a family man. He also thinks Nixon bombed the Great Wall of China. In this situation, the Idiot Plot works because the person being fooled is, in fact, an idiot. And the movie spends little time on Ali trying to hide this.

There are consequences, but the movie is less focused on moralizing and more focused on the growth of its character. There is a myth in writing that you need to hate your characters to write a good story. I disagree. You need to be willing for them to hurt, but it’s always obvious when a filmmaker cares about their characters, and when a filmmaker just hates people in general (Dan Fogelman's Life Itself comes to mind). This is the former. The point isn’t that women need to be mind-readers to succeed. The point is that self-worth is always found within, and until we know our worth, until we love ourselves, we can’t properly care for other people. Put your own oxygen mask on before assisting those next to you.

Brandon and Ali’s friendship and work relationship is the crux of this message. Brandon is the only one who truly understands Ali’s gift and uses this to his advantage. He can bite his tongue but cannot keep his thoughts at bay, and what follows is an incredibly blocked and acted scene in Ali’s office where Brandon psychically stands up for himself. Ali is so focused on the discrimination she faces as a “twofer”–a black women in a white mens’ workplace–that she neglects her own prejudiced notion that Brandon won’t be a competent sports agent because he’s gay. This scene sounds intense and dramatic on paper, but its execution is fast-paced and funny. People clapped at its climactic beat, and rightly so.

I came into this movie with really low expectations. Maybe you’ll see it and not be blown away. But I was. Comedies like this can often be boring, or go to places that just don’t work. This was never boring, and all the laughs hit. I was reminded of the original Bad Moms in how human and surprisingly edifying the movie was, but this actually fired on more cylinders than Bad Moms did. I saw this on a Sunday double feature, this and The Lego Movie 2, and I was more excited for the latter. For what it’s worth, this was my favorite of the two.

Speaking of Bad Moms, this movie has the same cinematographer, Jim Denault. He likes to really emphasize family moments with almost overwhelmingly glowing light. He also is a little weird about focus. Sometimes the movie looks a little blurry. I think this is because he likes to use a softer focus than what we are used to in this era of 4K Ultra HD. I mention this because a lot of readers are patrons of, or staff at, the Arclight cinema in Hollywood. It staff has to check for sound and picture quality if they greet a show. Audiences often thought Bad Moms was blurry, then realized it was just a deliberately softer focus. Same story here. Just an interesting tidbit. Insert pun about how I’d like to “hear his thoughts” as to why he does that.

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