How To Please A Woman | Dir: Renée Webster | ★ ★ ★ ★
Gina (Sally Phillips) gets together with a group of women for early morning swims at Leighton Beach. Turning fifty has not been great but the sunrise swims in the Indian Ocean refresh her. Life seems joyless and overwhelming and she is unable to assert herself at work or at home, losing her employment with a liquidation company to a younger woman and to battling to communicate her needs in a sterile marriage.
When her friends get Gina a stripper for her birthday, he offers her anything she desires and she asks him to clean her house. Australian films do outrageous really well and when Gina decides to take over the moving business she had been looking at for liquidation and use the men as sexy cleaners, things get hilariously out of hand as the clients request extras.
Everything about the film’s plot is so wrong if you think about it for too long, but so many side-splitting situations result. Of course, the success of the film is that it mixes the outrageous humour with seeds of truth and enormous amounts of compassion. Gina’s journey of working out and asking for what she wants makes us reflect on our lives as we chuckle at the hurdles she has to clear.
Writer/director Renée Webster admits that this is a naughty film. “I’m interested in dancing along the naughty edge and staying true to the things that matter in our private lives. But, once the dust has settled from all the fun, I hope this film is one that lingers and opens up new conversations in our lives.”
Meanwhile I’m still smiling about the remote-controlled vaginal vibrating egg.
How to Please a Woman screens at UWA’s Somerville Monday 27 December – Sunday 2 January ahead of opening Australia-wide 26 May. Find out more about the season at perthfestival.com.au
Lezly Herbert
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