Touchingly naive: Superb cast wasted on tiresome formula

Anyone who reads advice books about romance has one problem to begin with: bad taste in literature. The idea that a book can advise a woman how to capture a man is touchingly naive. Books advising men how to capture women are far less common, perhaps because few men are willing to admit to such a difficulty. For both sexes I recommend a good novel, offering scenarios you might learn from, if only because they reflect a lot of doubt.

Nevertheless, in 2009 the comedian and radio host Steve Harvey wrote a best seller titled Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy and Commitment. This was advice for women. It apparently left some questions, because in 2010 Harvey felt the demand for another book, Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep and Understand a Man. A small industry had been set in motion, which inspired Maria Bustillos' Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman: A Woman's Response to Steve Harvey's Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (2009). What are Bustillos' qualifications? One month before that book, she published Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork.

Among Harvey's qualifications are that he's been married three times and possibly gained some insights from his two ex-wives about how they failed to keep him. This is not a history to inspire confidence, but in the new movie Think Like a Man, we're expected to believe that every woman in the film bought the book and started living her life according to it. The twist comes when the men in their lives discover their secret reading and study the book themselves. Now the men know the women's game plan. Full Review