Men are pigs? OK, sure - so what's your point?
'Waiting to Exhale' doesn't seem to have anything else to say

Date: December 22, 1995
By Robert W. Butler, Movie Editor

From Kansas City Star
Submitted by: Larry A.


Men are swine.
Not all men. But most of them.
And
That's the problem with "Waiting to Exhale. " There is no and.

Director Forest Whitaker's film - based on Terry McMillan's best seller about four single black women and their romantic struggles - is at its best when it's comically dissecting the behavior of men who are sure they're God's gift. This movie could be called "Lies Men Tell."

Aside from skewering testosterone-fueled egos, little else in the movie registers. Whatever points "Waiting" attempts to make about the need for women to support one another and cast off outmoded (or at least generally unattainable) romantic notions are quickly forgotten in favor of ribald hilarity.

Our four heroines live in Arizona and are all more-or-less middle class - no welfare moms here.

Robin (Lela Rochon) and Savannah (Whitney Houston) are young business types, although their tastes in men differ. Robin gravitates toward guys with street-wise attitudes, like the drug-dabbling Troy (Mykelti Williamson) and the sexually powerful Russell (Leon). The more sophisticated Savannah skews upscale - she has a long-running off-and-on romance with the well-heeled Kenneth (Dennis Haysbert), who is always promising to leave his wife but never gets around to it.

Gloria (Loretta Devine) runs a beauty salon; she's divorced, overweight and the only man in her life is her teenage son.

Bernadine (Angela Bassett) is at the other end of the spectrum - she and her husband (Michael Beach) have built a successful multimillion-dollar business, but now he's dumping her for his white bookkeeper. What's more, over the years the skunk has made sure that all the family assets are exclusively in his name.

Lest it be accused of unrelenting male bashing, "Waiting to Exhale" (the screenplay is by McMillan and Ronald Bass) does deliver a few admirable men. Wesley Snipes has an uncredited cameo as an out-of-towner devoted to a wife who is dying of cancer.

He and Bernadine share an unexpected night of non-carnal mutual comfort - after he confesses that he hasn't had sex for a year. This sequence will strike half the audience as touching and the other half as wretchedly manipulative.

Robin has a raucously lurid encounter with a rotund co-worker (Wendell Pierce) who does everything wrong in bed (we can hear her thoughts - "I could have had a V-8" - as he grunts and groans). But instead of simply humiliating the poor oaf, the movie reveals him to be willing and eager to please, if somewhat lacking in technique.

Gregory Hines is decency personified as Gloria's new neighbor, who confesses that he admires a woman "with some meat on her." The four stars do well enough, although the screenplay allows them not to interact with the other characters so much as comment upon them.

Bassett rivets one's attention as the wronged woman erupting in post-marital fury and sinking into a dull fog of depression. With most of today's movies too cowardly to indulge in rubbed-raw anger, it's a pleasure to see this remarkable actress engage in full-throttle emotions.

Least effective is Houston, whose character declares early on that "men are best at making us feel desperate" and spends the rest of the film proving that point. Her Savannah comes off as pretty but colorless.

Whitaker, making his feature directing debut, delivers a handful of good scenes and several merely adequate ones; his major accomplishment is keeping the material from sliding into bitterness. The tone is less woman scorned than woman mocking - very much in line with the novel.

How it rates
1/2
"Waiting to Exhale," a drama, is rated R for language and some strong sexuality. Running time is 2 hours 2 minutes.