how to please a woman

★★★

starring: sally phillips, erik thomson, caroline brazier, and alexander england

REVIEWER: lyall carter

When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman must embrace her own sexuality, if she is to make a new life for herself.

Gina is not feeling fabulous. She has lost her job and feels stuck and frustrated in a passionless marriage. She has always lived life on the sidelines – that is, until she is met with a groundbreaking business opportunity of converting a team of well-built moving guys into well-built house cleaners. But, as her business booms, her clientele demands something more – sex, or better yet, pleasure. Faced with something far more than she imagined, Gina and her team, including her foodie manager Steve, launch an enterprise that is all about getting intimacy right between people. 

Before the subject matter of How to Please a Woman makes you raise a prudish eyebrow in self righteous judgment at this ‘Hollywood sleaze’ think again. It’s not that kinda of movie.  Sure, it’s about a woman who starts a house cleaning service with ‘extras’, but it's so much more than that. 

It’s about not just Gina but a group of women of a certain age who feel looked over and neglected and are searching for intimacy - not just of a physical nature. It’s no surprise that How to Please a Woman is made by women as it's incisively observant of simple ways that women are overlooked from their age to their body shape and everything in between. It’s arresting stuff. 

How to Please a Woman is a slow, but steady builder in its pacing and character development and while it doesn’t necessarily deliver the big laugh out loud moments it definitely leaves you with a smile on your face. The ensemble cast is wonderfully led by Sally Phillips in a role that demands the intricacy of a subtle and growing change in overall confidence in her character. She gives a superb performance. 

While How To Please a Woman is slow yet steady in its pacing and character development, its observation of women's search for true intimacy is incisively expressed.

★★★