"How to Please a Woman" is set in Australia and revolves around Gina (played by the protean Sally Phillips), a bossy older woman, trapped in a functional but largely sexless marriage. When Gina's friends get together to pay Tom (Alexander England, a handsome moving company employee) to come to her house and strip for her on her birthday, she changes her offer of sex and asks him to to help her clean the living room.
The encounter plants a seed in Gina's mind as she is fired from her own workplace and Tom's moving company is about to be forcibly shut down by the same crew. As enterprising as she is sexually frustrated, Gina manages to turn the moving company into a service for women, offering her burly male employees as sex workers who also scrub floors or do whatever other household chores the client desires. The whole concept is a bit silly, but it does give the film an opportunity to create comedy out of Full Monty's transformation from scruffy guys into sensitive lovers, with the help of Gina's many friends who sign up for the service.
I'm not quite sure what I was expecting when I sat down to watch How to Please a Woman. I hadn't seen any of the trailers, and there was only the poster which, at best, gives off a 'Cougar Town after they figured out what Cougar Town was and changed their minds about calling it Cougar Town energy.' However, no matter what I thought, I'm not sure I'm ready for the wild turns this movie takes.
So, to set the scene, Gina (Sally Phillips) spends her mornings swimming in the ocean off the coast of Western Australia with her friends, which is the part of her life that gives her purpose. Her marriage to Adrian (Cameron Daddo) is loveless, and her boss, Gary (Ben Mortley), is more interested in her personal physical attributes than how good they are at her job. Knowing that she is in a bad place, her friends buy her a stripper named Tom (Alexander England) for her birthday. They just didn't realize that the "premium package" meant that they had actually paid for a prostitute and not a stripper. Not wanting to cheat on her husband, Gina takes her "I can do whatever you want for two hours" to clean her house, at which point she comes up with an idea for a new business.
There is a lot to unpack in this film, but one of the main themes of this film is to explore how people who have been ignored by society find purpose in themselves again. Women over thirty in the film are rarely seen as sexual creatures, taking on the standard roles of mother or grandmother. Here we have an exploration of their physical desires, needs and also their bodies. Just because they've grown old doesn't mean their wants and needs have vanished. This is well captured by the protagonist, Sally Phillips, trying to find her place in a world where she swims through molasses. When the movie focuses on this, it just sticks out. Throw in a solid supporting cast, some solid abs, and a useful Freemantle beachside location. Well, you have all the basic elements for an interesting movie.
Where the movie takes a turn is in its move from maybe women would like to pay men to clean their houses, to maybe have sex too. This immediately changes the tone and direction of the film from self-affirmation to self-exploration and then back again. Since this is a movie about the theme of prostitution, it means that there are several sexual encounters throughout the runtime. Some are quite tame, some are quite sassy, and some are super awkward. Interestingly, I think this is a movie that will be too edgy for some and too tame for others, they were aiming for a middle ground, but I don't think they've achieved it.
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