“What Women Want” Is Eye-Candy Real Estate: The World Of Nancy Meyers

Slate has put together a fun feature that combines two of my favorite things: real estate and movies. It poses the important question, How posh are the characters in the Nancy Meyers oeuvre, judging by the price of their domiciles?

How much did that Napa Valley ranch and fairy-tale English vacation cabin cost, anyway? In the video above, with the help of public records and comparable properties, we estimated the cost of the homes that Meyers’ opulent characters inhabit. Spoiler: They are very rich.

Indeed! The cheapest pad seems to be a $400,000 Chicago apartment. The most expensive goes for tens of millions.

Why is it important that they be so easy on the eyes? It’s not complicated. Meyers may be famous for her cinematic romantic fantasies but she’s perhaps equally well-known, and well appreciated, for providing audiences the world over with decor porn.

In the same breathless tone of voice with which teenagers ask each other, “Peeta or Gale?” the Elements of Style blog recently demanded of readers, “Which Nancy Meyers Kitchen Would You Choose?”

Jezebel’s spin on the question is, “Which Nancy Meyers Kitchen Are You?” (I’m the Northern California kitchen from The Parent Trap.)

Her rom coms have Pinterest pages, for God’s sake. And if you like what you see on screen, Vogue now provides an “Add To Cart” button.

What I find particularly interesting that drooling over fine interior design in Meyers’ movies is by no means merely an American thing. Meyers’ latest, The Intern, has made about $59 million so far and, worldwide, $136,000,000. Something’s Gotta Give made over $266,000,000 worldwide, and only about half of that gross was domestic. What Women Want made an astounding $374,000,000 worldwide the same way.

Seems like a taste for the fancy, well-decorated houses of affluent people is one of relatively few things about which all of us, foreign and domestic, can agree.

Since I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen a single Nancy Meyers movie, I can’t pick a favorite — kitchen, that is. But I’m as much a sucker for a pretty onscreen apartment as anyone. Sure, it annoys me when there doesn’t seem to be a way the protagonist could possibly afford it. The lovely Manhattan home of Rosario Dawson’s character in Top Five, which I just watched, is one in a long line of utterly implausible NYC apartments for creative types in movies. It doesn’t take long, though, for my snort to turn into a wistful sigh. It’s all smoke and mirrors and fairy dust anyway, right? Might as well turn off the brain and enjoy the show.

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