Houston Film Needs Drama, Not Whimsy

Date: December 13, 1996
By John Hartl, Movie Reviewer

From The Seattle Times
Submitted by: Larry A.


Penny Marshall's music-filled remake of "The Bishop's Wife" is not as raucous and jarring as this season's other family-oriented movies, and Whitney Houston fans should be happy with the way it showcases her singing. But the filmmakers have systematically drained most of the dramatic conflict that drove the original. The result is a rudderless holiday fantasy that seems much longer than it is. And at 124 minutes, that's already long enough.

The 1947 original (which will be shown tomorrow night at the Admiral Theater) managed to tell the same story in well under two hours. Actually, it told more of it, because there's a genuine problem at the heart of "The Bishop's Wife": Henry, an Episcopalian bishop played by David Niven, is so obsessed with cathedral-building that he neglects his wife, Julia (Loretta Young), who finds solace with an angel named Dudley (Cary Grant). In the end, Dudley helps Henry see the error of his materialistic ways, the cathedral is not built and the marriage is saved.

In the remake, everyone's so nice, so accommodating, so reasonable, that there's almost no story to tell. Henry, now a conscientious community leader played by Courtney B. Vance, is practically a saint.

When Dudley the angel (now transformed into Denzel Washington) arrives in town and makes disparaging remarks about Henry, he's immediately given the cold shoulder by townspeople who know how generous Henry is with his time and his efforts to help people in trouble. Julia is part of the church choir - which gives Houston lots of opportunities to demonstrate her gospel talent, and less reason for her character to feel neglected.

Before it's half over, this shapeless piece of whimsy begins to resemble a series of Houston music videos (the best bit is an a cappella version of "The Lord's Prayer") and product plugs (the spiritual significance of Microsoft's Windows 95 is weighed), intercut with increasingly annoying episodes in which Henry insists on denying that Dudley is who he says he is.

Aside from a few idle threats from a real-estate magnate (Gregory Hines) who wants to demolish Henry's church and turn it into a mall, and the even less threatening implication that the angel is falling in love with the wife (at one point he imagines himself replacing Henry in their wedding photo), there's little to hold the story together.

A bearded Lionel Richie makes his movie debut as the owner of Jazzie's, a nightclub where Dudley takes Julia for a dance. Loretta Devine ("Dreamgirls") plays Henry's secretary and Jenifer Lewis (Tina Turner's mother in "What's Love Got to Do With It") is his chain-smoking mother-in-law.

Even with more than two hours of screen time to fill, Marshall gives none of them enough to do, nor does she help Houston find a way to justify Julia's sense of estrangement. Henry and Julia's child, Jeremiah (Justin Pierre Edmund), provides an opening narration, and a narrative point of view, that's forgotten before the movie's 10 minutes old.

Everyone seems adrift here. But then that would be true of any actor, given the softness of this script.