'Waiting to Exhale': A light, satisfying relationship story

Date: December 22, 1995
By Louis B. Parks, Staff

From The Houston Chronicle
Submitted by: Larry A.


IT'S hard to find a good man when you need one. In fact, it's hard to find a good man, ever.

That's the way it seems to the four women pals of "Waiting to Exhale." They are middle-class black women living in Phoenix, Ariz., who learn that the only thing worse than not having a man is having one.

Take Bernadine (Angela Bassett). She's been living in a fool's paradise. She nurtured and supported her husband and his business through all the tough years, only to have the low-down, ungrateful so-and-so pack up and move in with his young (insult) secretary (bigger insult). And she's white (biggest insult)!

Robin (Lela Rochon), on the other hand, has plenty of men all the time - but not one who wants to marry her. She spends her time and energy buying expensive makeup and sexy clothes to please every crummy man she meets with a fast line of patter. She has no time left to find a really nice guy.

Savannah (Whitney Houston) has a good man - polite, with a good job. Only he lives back East and is married to someone else. Oh, he's going to leave her one of these days, when the time is right. Savannah's mom keeps telling her to stick with him.

Gloria (Loretta Devine) is a different case. She's been so long without a man - since she was a teenage mom and dedicated herself to raising her son - that she has substituted food for love.

Readers of Terry McMillan's best-selling novel will find the women of "Waiting to Exhale" brought to the screen almost exactly as they were written.

Houston may be a bit more glamorous than McMillan's Savannah, and the women don't talk quite as nastily all the time, but otherwise this is a faithful page-to-screen adaptation. The screenplay by McMillan and Ronald Bass ("Rain Man, The Joy Luck Club") has heightened or expanded cinematic elements of the story here and there. We actually see Bernadine at the property settlement session with her husband, rather than just hear about it from her lawyer.

The result is a light but generally satisfying bonding experience that bounces between funny and enraging. Audiences won't always like what these characters do, but they will identify with many of the women's mistakes and emotions. "Waiting to Exhale" is not a great film, but it is among the few that have tried to delve seriously into relationships among women and between women and men. There's considerable pleasure in seeing how this exploration is handled.

The movie was directed by actor Forest Whitaker ("Bird, The Crying Game"), a somewhat surprising choice, considering the material and the many women directors now available. Fairly or not, that opens the film to criticism for showing too great a male influence in its execution. For instance, I heard one complaint that Whitaker's camera lingers too long on the physical glories of Rochon's character, Robin, in sexy attire. On the other hand, Robin's lack of self-respect and her showing off just to please men is the point of her story.

Most of the film strives for a woman's point of view. And, since the subject is women who have been done wrong, it should come as no surprise that "Waiting to Exhale" shows little mercy, comic or otherwise, for the male of the species.

Traditionally, few men attend films that are primarily about women and their emotions, so it may not matter that there are times in "Waiting to Exhale" when male viewers might wonder how they can slip out of the theater safely. But McMillan and the filmmakers aren't bashing all men, just those who do wrong by her characters. And a better breed of man does show up late in the film.

With minor exceptions, the movie downplays the ethnicity of its characters. This is a story of women who happen to be black; their story has universal appeal.

In addition, some slight changes in language have been made in bringing the book to the screen, and the setting itself - the Phoenix area - tends to give McMillan's story a somewhat nonracial perspective.

McMillan has been an associate professor at the University of Arizona, so it's natural that she set her story there. But even the characters in her novel regard Phoenix as a somewhat unexpected locale for a story of black women to unfold. Indeed, few Hollywood movies have shown us African-Americans in such middle-class suburban settings. Bassett, a force of nature on screen, is "Waiting to Exhale's" outraged powerhouse as a jilted wife. Her pain at being thrown over for another women is palpable, and her righteous anger, when she finally gets going, is a joy to watch.

Houston, the least experienced actress here, does a perfectly sound acting job when she could have coasted through her role on looks and personality alone. She is not in Bassett's class - few actors are - but she holds her own.

Gregory Hines plays Gloria's new neighbor, who takes an interest in her and her son, and the unbilled Wesley Snipes appears in an accidental meeting that brings meaning to Bernadine's life.