Breathless 'Exhale' Lacks Depth, Drama

Date: December 22, 1995
By Rod Dreher, Film Writer

From Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Submitted by: Larry A.


Waiting to Exhale is the chickiest of chick flicks. It's about four middle-class black women friends who support each other through their travails with men. Bad experiences with boyfriends and husbands help cement the ladies' friendship, but the process of female bonding takes forever.

This will not be lost on the husbands and boyfriends taken to see this film by their women (who will surely adore it). In the time it takes these talky thirtysomething women to yak their way through one romantic crisis, Danny Glover and Mel Gibson could've blown up a building, wrecked three cars, punched each other in the shoulder and sealed their eternal buddyhood over a six-pack.

The title refers to that comfortable sigh a woman lets out when she's safe in the arms of a good man - that's according to Savannah (Whitney Houston). At a party, she dances close with a handsome fellow, and exhales contentedly - only to draw a surprised breath when the man's other woman shows up. Being disappointed by a man happens a lot to the women in this movie.

At least she has it better than her girlfriend Bernadine (Angela Bassett), whose husband is leaving her and the kids for a white woman. She retaliates by loading the skunk's BMW with his expensive suits and shoes, and setting it on fire. Sadly, the fire department gets to it in time. Being disappointed by the lack of things blowing up happens a lot to the men who watch this movie.

Gloria (Loretta Devine) and Robin (Lela Rochon) are in the romance dumps too. The only man in Gloria's life is her teen son (Donald Adeosun Faison), and Robin has a penchant for good-looking dirtballs like Troy (Mykelti Williamson), a sometime crackhead who steals her wallet.

Men in Exhale are basically egoists who are unfaithful, unreliable and bad in bed. The drama is built around these women entangling themselves with these guys, then talking to each other about how confusing and hurtful it all is. Oh, and how nice it is that they have each other to lean on.

I have it on good authority that women who read the best-selling Terry McMillan novel find this sort of exchange vastly comforting and true to their own experience. But a few funny lines notwithstanding, these conversations, disclosures and confidences are too banal to generate much interest in these characters or provide much insight into their situations. It's like The Oprah Winfrey Show Movie.

Though the menfolk are generally moral weasels, it wouldn't be fair to describe Exhale as a male-bashing film. There are two good guys here (Gregory Hines and, in an unbilled cameo, Wesley Snipes) who typify the kind of suitors this movie thinks women should pursue: strong, sexy men who believe in fidelity to wife and family and are willing to treat women as friends, not simply sex objects. Exhale proclaims that women are better off alone than settling for any other kind of man out of loneliness or need.

The mesmerizing Angela Bassett excepted, the cast is as good as the material - which is to say, fair to middling. Actor Forest Whitaker makes a skillful big-screen directing debut with Waiting to Exhale, bringing a visual style as smooth and seductive as the smoldering slow-jam soundtrack. It's not an unpleasant way to pass a couple of hours - but if you're hoping for depth of character or dramatic revelation, don't hold your breath.