Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a smooth talking man's man. He is the steriotypical advertising executive very successfully specializing in male sexual appeal oriented advertising. Nick, expecting to be promoted to Creative Director is not because his boss (Alan Alda) realizes that the company has lost ground by specializing in the tit's & ass advertising that is no longer relevant to the new female dominated marketplace. He hires a hot shot blonde (Helen Hunt) who knows what women want and Nick must serve under her- a position this womanizer is not familiar with in any way or form. And so, the fun begins!

Nick experimenting with standard female products such as a home waxing kit, lipstick, mascara, blah blah has an earthshatering event transforming him into a receiving telepath that picks up what women are thinking - word for word. After a lot of confusion he begins to focus on one person's thoughts at one time and successfully screws his new boss Darcy Maquire out of her job. Problem, he falls in love with her in the process.

Nick learns how to nurture his daughter - but more importantly he discovers that he wants to be nurturing after he learns what she really thinks and feels. He ruthlessly seduces the coffee shop girl Lola (Marisa Tomei); then in a weirdly compassionate way dumps her indicating he has learned something from telepathic intimacy.

This movie respectfully makes no attempt at promoting telepathy in it's true form and rather accidentally does a humorously decent job of it anyway. When Nick first experiences women's thoughts it is a realistic portrayal of how frightening and confusing the reality of telepathy is.

A telepathic encounter with another living creature is much more intimate than sex - by far! In a real telepaths life, sympathy is the enemy and truth is a bitch. A telepath must remain neutral even though they are thinking with, feeling with, being one with the other person; one must listen and feel but not get sucked into the target's situation. Y'know what they say about eavesdroppers!?they tend not to like what they hear. Nick does an admirable job of remaining neutral, not because of any deep enlightenment regarding the human condition, but rather because he is still basically a chauvinistic oinker and so remains relatively unsympathetic to his subject's true emotional plights.

There is little to no psychic educational value to this movie. The promotions try to draw a male audience but it's really a chick flick about what men think.

There was only one point I took offense to; Nick's two personal aids (Delta Burke and Valerie Perrine), both friends of Nick's mother, all whom are retired Vegas Showgirls, were portrayed as having absolutely empty heads. Nope, no thoughts at all, not anything! If a movie is going to provide some fun for all, is it really necessary to include insulting and condescending double standards as sub-plots? I don't think it's what today's women want.