Simplistic 'Waiting To Exhale' Should Have Audiences Waiting To Exit

Date: December 22, 1995
By Frank Gabrenya, Film Critic

From Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
Submitted by: Larry A.


Men are divided into three basic groups: rats, snakes and roaches. A parade of women's movies - the Fried Green Magnolias genre - has made the point over and over: Men are duplicitous creatures ruled by their genitals, with the emotional capacity of sewer sludge. Waiting To Exhale, another angry ''women's movie,'' portrays men according to the stereotype: as worms with hands.

Surprisingly, though, the women don't fare much better. The four lead characters suffer familiar abuse from the men they think they love, then react by doing many of the same things.

Based on Terry McMillan's popular novel, the movie chronicles the unhappy love lives of four friends.Savannah (Whitney Houston) prays to God for a good, bright, sexy, reliable man and, without fail, is disappointed. (This is proof, apparently, that God is just another undependable male.)

Bernadine (Angela Bassett) is suddenly dumped by her husband after several years of marriage - and after helping him launch his company. She reacts calmly - by setting fire to his clothes and his car.

Robin (Lela Rochon), a business whiz, has a knack for picking the worst possible men. Even she can't explain why the good sense that drives her career deserts her when a stranger smiles at her.

Gloria (Loretta Devine), who is divorced, is raising a teen-age son. Except for an occasional, all-night visit from her ex-husband - who suddenly announces that he's gay - she has dropped out of the dating race.

The movie covers one year, from New Year's to New Year's, as each woman suffers one honey-tongued rogue after another. Eventually, decent men do appear - particularly a dependable widower (Gregory Hines) who moves in across the street from Gloria and proves himself perfection incarnate.

Still, one can't be blamed for watching the constant flow of scum in the first two hours and rooting for the women to take control of their lives, to make their own happiness, instead of waiting for men to bestow it on them. Unfortunately, women who have lost their men to other women go out looking for married men to steal away from someone else. Women who decry the male preoccupation with sex soon sacrifice their better judgment just for a rush of physical pleasure.

Waiting To Exhale has an uncomfortable and unrealistic focus on sexual intimacy as the only source of contentment. No wonder the women constantly feel let down. Bassett, probably the best actress in the cast, exudes frightening rage as the wronged wife, but the script doesn't give her much to do with her anger.

''I need somebody to hold me,'' Bassett's character says, ''even if it is a damn lie.''In other words, the movie's most intelligent woman is reduced to a helpless dependence on men for her happiness. That's insulting. Houston and Rochon play virtually the same, unpleasant scene in which a man performs foolishly in bed while the passive woman's voice-over comments on how much she hates what's happening. Once is enough to make the point.

In her first film since The Bodyguard, Houston doesn't make much of a ripple. Either she holds too much back, or she has too little to give. Devine is the most fun, even though her character is the brunt of the usual, condescending ''fat'' jokes.

As directed with some resourcefulness by actor Forest Whitaker (A Rage in Harlem, The Crying Game), Waiting To Exhale means to encompass the range of the modern black woman's unhappy experiences with love. While each episode may spring from truth - that is, from the confessions of panelists from any installment of Tempestt or Ricki Lake - they add up to a grim view of the battle of the sexes as the pointless groping of blindfolded people in a pitch-dark room.

Waiting To Exhale. Directed by Forest Whitaker. Written by Terry McMillan and Ronald Bass, based on the novel by McMillan. Photographed by Toyomichi Kurita.

Savannah Whitney Houston
Bernadine Angela Bassett
Gloria Loretta Devine
Robin Lela Rochon
Marvin Gregory Hines
Kenneth Dennis Haysbert
Troy Mykelti Williamson
John Sr. Michael Beach
Russell Leon
Michael Wendell Pierce

MPAA rating: R (for language, sexual content)
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes