Actresses bring fresh air to 'Exhale'

Date: December 22, 1995
By Robert Denerstein, Film Critic

From Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Submitted by: Larry A.


Waiting To Exhale
Grade B-

This year's crop of women's movies seems incapable of focusing on a single individual, looking instead for strength in numbers. These movies aren't about a woman, but about womanhood - and with a capital "W" at that.

Now comes Waiting To Exhale, an energetic, soap-operatic adaptation of Terry McMillan's best-selling novel, and the first black entry into a fast- growing genre, the female buddy movie.

Nearly everything about Waiting To Exhale - from its glamorous stars to its upscale Phoenix settings - seems designed to create commercial dazzle. Exhale stars Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett and features a wall-to-wall pop soundtrack.

Even scenes that clearly are aimed at eliciting cheers from black female audiences (an enraged wife slugs her husband's white mistress or sets his much-prized clothes on fire) are tempered by an absolute acceptance of bourgeoisie materialism.

One of the film's triumphs arrives when Bassett's character wins a huge financial settlement from the businessman husband who has left her. After a moment's sober reflection, she celebrates with all the gusto of a football player romping in the end zone. More cheers from women at a preview screening.

The real excitement of the movie - captured in a slick style by Forest Whitaker, an actor making his directorial debut - involves the actresses. Bassett, whose fiery temperament begins to seem monotonous after awhile, plays a wronged, angry wife who never looks anything less than gorgeous.

Houston, better than she was in The Bodyguard, appears as a TV producer who can't seem to find the right man. Lela Rochon portrays a libidinous executive, and Loretta Divine appears as a single mom whose former husband has become gay.

Much of the humor is sexually oriented and derives from the way these women see men. From a cocaine-snorting louse (Mykelti Williamson) to a philandering married man (Dennis Haysbert), the common thread seems to be duplicity.

For the sake of balance, two exceptions are offered to the male-bashing fiesta. Gregory Hines appears as a sympathic widower, and Wesley Snipes appears in cameo as a traveling executive whose wife is dying of cancer.

One scene in this eye-popping mess of a movie proves especially instructive. A spectacularly turned out Houston attends a New Year's Eve party. She meets an attractive man (Jeffrey D. Sams). He's attached for the evening, but calls her later. Next time we see him, he's brushing his teeth in her bathroom, and, she's telling us what a disappointment he is. The male facade quickly crumbles.

You get the idea. Underlying the movie's comedy, some of which can be sharply funny, is that most reliable of humorous sparks: anger - and McMillan, who co-wrote the script with Ron Bass, clearly believes it's justifiable.

The plot of Exhale couldn't breathe without contrivance. When a stout woman is at her lowest ebb, a widower (Hines) shows up to tell her that he likes big women. And Wesley Snipes, in a well-acted cameo, provides hope for Bassett's embittered character, as if the movie's saying, "Yes, Virginia, there are a few good men."

For the most part, this proclamation of sisterhood comes at the expense of men. But unlike some of its big-screen counterparts, Exhale makes no attempt to hide its feelings - in fact, it's about those feelings.