'Waiting To Exhale' (R, 2 HRS., 3 MIN.)

Date: January 05, 1996
By Jane Horwitz

From Sun-Sentinel
Submitted by: Larry A.


Inappropriate for all but mature high-schoolers because of explicit sexuality and profanity, this smart, funny flick dramatizes Terry McMillan's novel about four female friends and their love lives. That they're living solidly middle-and upper-middle-class lives in Arizona makes this movie stand out from Hollywood's usual depiction of black life.

Warmly directed by Forest Whitaker, it's the story of Bernadine (Angela Bassett), just abandoned by her rich husband (for a white woman); Savannah (Whitney Houston), making herself miserable over a married man; Robin (Lela Rochon), successful at work but a pushover for faithless flirts; and Gloria (Loretta Devine), raising a teen-age son, running a hair salon and hoping for romance.

Their stories sometimes sound like talk-show confessions, and Bassett acts her less experienced co-stars off the screen. Still, Exhale transcends all that, looking at romance from the women's point of view and finding it frequently hilarious, often sad and rarely fulfilling.