HOW TO PLEASE A WOMAN
***
Director: Renée Webster
Screenwriter: Renée Webster
Principal cast:
Sally Phillips
Alexander England
Erik Thomson
Caroline Brazier
Ryan Johnson
Cameron Daddo
Country: Australia
Classification: M
Runtime: 107 mins.
Australian release date: 19 May 2022.
If you type the title of Renée Webster’s debut feature film, How to Please a Woman, into an internet search engine, you’ll get a range of sites that are rather instructive… and I don’t mean about the movie. I guess that’s appropriate because it fits the premise of the film as stated on the handbill, a “journey into the vulnerable world of what women really want and how hard it can be to get it right.” Today’s women want to take control of their own desires in the household and the bedroom and not have their needs treated as secondary by their partners. The idea for the film came to writer/director Webster when she heard about an Aussie company that offered sexual services exclusively for women. When she interviewed the creators and found out more about the company, she thought it provided the perfect premise for a story about women’s sexuality and the outline began to take shape. Thus, her movie opens up about the frustrations that many women feel when caught in jobs and relationships that are stifling and fail to provide any sense of achievement or satisfaction.
How to Please a Woman is a rather beguiling comedy that examines the dormant desires of a group of women who hang out together in one of the remotest state capitals in the world, Perth, Western Australia. The precise location is the port suburb of Fremantle, which is a bit more laidback than Perth itself and, judging by the production design, hasn’t yet left the 1970s. After all, when was the last time you saw a profusion of hanging baskets! The women meet at dawn every morning to swim in the Indian Ocean and exchange gossip in the changerooms as they shower and prepare for the day ahead.
Just as Gina (English actress Sally Phillips) is turning 50, she is sacked from her office job at a liquidation company because the boss considers her to be too old (and he has his eyes on a younger replacement with bigger breasts). Rather than give up her career, she takes over a removalist business that is headed for bankruptcy. When her girlfriends send her a stripper-gram as a birthday present, she tells the guy that she’s not interested in seeing him strip but he protests, saying “he’ll do anything,” so she asks him to clean her house. And voila! She decides to turn the moving company into an all-male cleaning service, one that comes with sexual perks. The men are a varied lot and one of them is the hunky stripper who was sent to her house, Tom (Alexander England from Little Monsters), who’s not really into cleaning but is happy to get his kit off, and soon word about Gina’s ‘hot’ new business spreads. Also in Gina’s life is a distracted husband, Adrian (Cameron Daddo), who’s lost interest in her sexually, and a new business partner, Steve (Erik Thompson), who ran the almost insolvent removalist firm before her takeover. All of a sudden, Gina’s life is changing and she is beginning to take control of it for the first time.
How to Please a Woman deals with basic female desires in a simple but effective manner - Webster’s script steers away from salaciousness but cleverly exposes the sexual frustrations that many women experience in their lives, particularly as they age. She says that she “wanted to really find meaningful ways to explore one of our themes of female sexual empowerment. There is a lot of sexual content in the film, but I don’t sexualize the visual representation of women. Instead, we honour what women look like, and I give sexual stories to women in that huge, under-explored area of those ‘no longer young, and not yet old.’” The female cast members all appear to be thoroughly at ease in their roles and, in fact, rather enjoying them; they’re so convincing that you suspect that many of them recognised the truth behind their character’s needs. Comedy can be a difficult genre to deliver successfully, but the frank subject matter, the beautiful seaside locations and the overall charm of How to Please a Woman should appeal to a universal audience (not just women of a certain age) who, between the laughs, will also learn that ‘pleasure is a serious business.’
Screenwriter: Renée Webster
Principal cast:
Sally Phillips
Alexander England
Erik Thomson
Caroline Brazier
Ryan Johnson
Cameron Daddo
Country: Australia
Classification: M
Runtime: 107 mins.
Australian release date: 19 May 2022.
If you type the title of Renée Webster’s debut feature film, How to Please a Woman, into an internet search engine, you’ll get a range of sites that are rather instructive… and I don’t mean about the movie. I guess that’s appropriate because it fits the premise of the film as stated on the handbill, a “journey into the vulnerable world of what women really want and how hard it can be to get it right.” Today’s women want to take control of their own desires in the household and the bedroom and not have their needs treated as secondary by their partners. The idea for the film came to writer/director Webster when she heard about an Aussie company that offered sexual services exclusively for women. When she interviewed the creators and found out more about the company, she thought it provided the perfect premise for a story about women’s sexuality and the outline began to take shape. Thus, her movie opens up about the frustrations that many women feel when caught in jobs and relationships that are stifling and fail to provide any sense of achievement or satisfaction.
How to Please a Woman is a rather beguiling comedy that examines the dormant desires of a group of women who hang out together in one of the remotest state capitals in the world, Perth, Western Australia. The precise location is the port suburb of Fremantle, which is a bit more laidback than Perth itself and, judging by the production design, hasn’t yet left the 1970s. After all, when was the last time you saw a profusion of hanging baskets! The women meet at dawn every morning to swim in the Indian Ocean and exchange gossip in the changerooms as they shower and prepare for the day ahead.
Just as Gina (English actress Sally Phillips) is turning 50, she is sacked from her office job at a liquidation company because the boss considers her to be too old (and he has his eyes on a younger replacement with bigger breasts). Rather than give up her career, she takes over a removalist business that is headed for bankruptcy. When her girlfriends send her a stripper-gram as a birthday present, she tells the guy that she’s not interested in seeing him strip but he protests, saying “he’ll do anything,” so she asks him to clean her house. And voila! She decides to turn the moving company into an all-male cleaning service, one that comes with sexual perks. The men are a varied lot and one of them is the hunky stripper who was sent to her house, Tom (Alexander England from Little Monsters), who’s not really into cleaning but is happy to get his kit off, and soon word about Gina’s ‘hot’ new business spreads. Also in Gina’s life is a distracted husband, Adrian (Cameron Daddo), who’s lost interest in her sexually, and a new business partner, Steve (Erik Thompson), who ran the almost insolvent removalist firm before her takeover. All of a sudden, Gina’s life is changing and she is beginning to take control of it for the first time.
How to Please a Woman deals with basic female desires in a simple but effective manner - Webster’s script steers away from salaciousness but cleverly exposes the sexual frustrations that many women experience in their lives, particularly as they age. She says that she “wanted to really find meaningful ways to explore one of our themes of female sexual empowerment. There is a lot of sexual content in the film, but I don’t sexualize the visual representation of women. Instead, we honour what women look like, and I give sexual stories to women in that huge, under-explored area of those ‘no longer young, and not yet old.’” The female cast members all appear to be thoroughly at ease in their roles and, in fact, rather enjoying them; they’re so convincing that you suspect that many of them recognised the truth behind their character’s needs. Comedy can be a difficult genre to deliver successfully, but the frank subject matter, the beautiful seaside locations and the overall charm of How to Please a Woman should appeal to a universal audience (not just women of a certain age) who, between the laughs, will also learn that ‘pleasure is a serious business.’