'Preacher's Wife' A Pleasant Afternoon Yawner

Date: December 13, 1996
By Lawrence Toppman, Knight-Ridder News Service

From San Jose Mercury News (California)
Submitted by: Larry A.


WATCHING "THE Preacher's Wife" is like listening to your grandmother tell a story on a wintry day, murmuring as raindrops spatter a window and a fire blazes nearby. This low-key fairy tale makes for a gently rewarding afternoon you'll barely be able to remember the next morning.

Only one character, despairing preacher Henry Biggs, raises his voice in passion. The others coast through the sweet, obvious story with modest sadness and modest joy, shepherded by the relaxed direction of Penny Marshall.

The movie is a sort of Christmas holiday for the actors. Denzel Washington takes time off from intense characters to play Dudley, an amiable and even mischievous angel sent to help Henry and his wife, Julia, over a rough period in their marriage and church lives. (She's choir director at St. Matthew's Baptist, where Henry preaches.)

Whitney Houston takes a vacation from her musical career (though she performs at least parts of 10 gospel songs) to play Julia. She has the same sleepy pleasantness in every scene, whether allegedly frustrated over Henry's inattention or surprised by her attraction to the mysterious Dudley.

And Courtney B. Vance, who provides most of the sparks, gets a break from obscurity as Henry. He played James Earl Jones' son on Broadway in "Fences," but has spent most of his time in TV movies ("The Tuskegee Airmen") or bit parts ("Dangerous Minds"). He starts in emotional low gear in "The Preacher's Wife," but he soon picks up speed.

Henry's losing his faith as everything he values slips away. He thinks (wrongly) that his wife finds him an inadequate pastor, since he doesn't measure up to her father. His church is about to be torn down by a greedy developer, which may not be so bad: Its boiler has exploded, and the deacons have no money for a new one.

He hasn't been able to protect his son's best friend, who's gone to an orphanage. And one of the strayed sheep in his flock, a boy who had apparently reformed after a felony, is in jail again and blamed for a liquor-store robbery.

Henry sends up a tired prayer, and the answer literally drops out of the sky. Dudley can't convince Henry he's been sent by God; so he intervenes in small, effective ways in the lives of Henry's family.

If this sounds familiar, maybe you've seen "The Bishop's Wife," a 1947 drama with Loretta Young and David Niven as the couple and Cary Grant as the urbane angel. I don't remember a supporting cast as vivid as "Preacher's" Jenifer Lewis, Loretta Divine and Justin Pierre Edmund (who plays Julia and Henry's adorable son).

Or maybe you've just seen too many movies in which an angel descends to make everything right on the eve of a snowy Christmas.

Most of those have more drama than "The Preacher's Wife," where crises carry little weight. Henry really might be better off in the improved church proposed for another neighborhood by the developer, who's never very wicked. (If you want us to hate a villain, don't cast genial Gregory Hines.) Nobody else seems to care much that St. Matt's may be demolished.

This is a heartwarming, almost fail-safe story: Who among us doesn't want to believe that God's grace may fall on us from heaven when we least hope for it? But if you want this message with less sugarcoating and more nourishment, stick to "It's a Wonderful Life" or the Alastair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol."