Film Review: How To Please A Woman

Taupō & Tūrangi Herald's weekly film review. Photo / Getty Images

How To Please A Woman (137 mins)
Directed by Renée Webster
Here's a delightful adult comedy.

It's Australian, filmed in Fremantle, but that's only important for the beautiful swimming scenes in the Indian Ocean. The title might suggest the film is some sort of sex manual, but sorry if that disappoints, it's not, except for one touching (yes, touching) scene.

The story starts slowly, in a swimming pool locker room, on Gina's birthday. Gina (Sally Phillips, familiar as the friend of Bridget Jones and Miranda) is feeling unloved, her husband Adrian (Cameron Daddo) having merely thrust some money at her as her birthday present. Her swimming mates let her think they don't know it's her birthday, but they have something for her in a plain envelope and mischief is in the air.

Even when she's feeling pushed about by her boss in the liquidation company where she works, or ignored by sexually turned off Adrian, we're on Gina's side. We want her to recognise that her loyalty to Adrian is misplaced. Thanks to Sally Phillips' fine acting, we want something better for her.

That something better could be Tom (Alexander England) who soon knocks at Gina's door, plays raunchy music and starts stripping in front of her while still on her doorstep. Some birthday gift. But prudish, proper, committed Gina tells Tom to kill the music and put his shirt back on. Undeterred, Tom offers to do anything for her, anything at all. What she wants, what would please her most, is for Tom to clean her house. She shows him how.

It turns out Tom is only a stripper in his spare time, a novice too, but with Gina's liquidation firm about to close down the trucking company We Move You, where Tom works officially, stripping will be Tom's only job.

We Move You is run by Steve (Erik Thomson, 800 Words) with a staff of four including Tom. Steve is bewildered by his firm's imminent closure. What's next for him? And what's next for Gina when, out of the blue, she is handed a redundancy notice by her ageist boss. Will she be defeated? No, definitely not.

Things come together in Gina's entrepreneurial mind. She sells the idea to Steve and his staff that We Move You could clean houses for fed-up women. Then Gina's locker room mates persuade her that We Move You could offer a full range of services. Gina's resistant at first, but suddenly it's all on.

The chemistry between Gina and Steve is clear from the start, to us but not to Gina, a clever directorial device by writer/director Renée Webster. Gina wakes up to the suitability of Steve in the film's funniest moment. It's worth going to the movie for that scene alone.

A good story about ordinary people and human ingenuity told with humour and just a dash of pathos. Highly recommended.

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GIVEAWAY

The first person to bring an image or hardcopy of this review to Starlight Cinema Taupō qualifies for a free ticket to

How To Please A Woman.