How To Please A Woman: Movie Review

Cast: Sally Phillips, Erik Thomson, Alexander England, Josh Thomson
Director: Renee Webster

There's a truth rarely universally acknowledged on screen in Australian director Renee Webster's low key comedy drama about a 50 something woman looking for more in her life.

There's also a very cliched and unoriginal line in it as well - namely that men abhor cleaning and are universally rubbish at it.

Smack the Pony's comedy star Sally Phillips is Gina, a frustrated woman whose loveless marriage is dwindling, and who's the only one to be made redundant from her work. When her friends decide to get her a stripper for a significant birthday, a thoroughly exhausted Gina exhorts the shirtless Tom (England) to simply clean her house to fill up his allocated two hour time with her after he asks her what she truly desires.

However, Gina hits on the possibility of this being an idea for a new business - a topless cleaning service where the staff may also sleep with the clients....

How To Please A Woman certainly has a risky premise - inadvertently validating prostitution and it may certainly be accused of being a little light in the inherent comedy of the idea, preferring to deliver relatively flat oneliners instead of gut-bustingly hilarious moments. There is a feeling that at one point, the film's about to take on The Full Monty with a warehouse setting and male dancing, but wisely, How To Please A Woman veers away quickly from the easy route, and settles for something more complex, restrained and frustrated women-centric.

Thankfully, a wonderfully restrained Phillips is what makes How To Please A Woman work. There's a quiet air of desperation at play here, an addition to the pantheon of desperate older women who want their voices heard and their desires met. It's not as if Gina is a major addition to that canon, merely that a combination of subtle writing and understated performance make a potent mix.

Certainly, there's one clever scene that plays to the riskier edges of How To Please A Woman, so teased within the film's trailer. But outside of Phillips and Thomson, there really aren't any other strong enough characters to shine through here sadly. Even NZ's Josh Thomson is reduced to a role that makes him a mockery and one which, disappointingly, could vaguely be accused of a bit of racial stereotyping.

Ultimately, while How To Please A Woman isn't the gutbusting chick flick you'd be expecting, that's to its strength - because what emerges is a film that's lowkey enough to catch you unawares and well executed enough to be an amiable night out.