Warmth and Washington almost thaw Houston

Date: December 13, 1996
By Jay Carr, Globe Staff

From The Boston Globe
Submitted by: Larry A.


"The Preacher's Wife" fights off blandness with old-fashioned warmth to stand as a Christmas fable that genuflects to African-American sensibilities. Nor is it without star power. As an angel sent to earth to help an altruistic preacher save his neighborhood church, only to fall for the preacher's wife, Denzel Washington demonstrates once more his ability to command the screen while seeming to back away from the limelight. As the woman tempted in part by her do-gooding husband's neglect of his own family, Whitney Houston projects a certain strength of will, but as usual reminds us that she's still learning to act as confidently as she sings.

Obviously, Houston thought it was time to visit gospel music, and when she's singing it, she's a real diva - singing with richness, authority and at times a sense of the pulse-pounding joy that makes spirituals uplifting. Long after the film ends, you'll still be swaying to her rendition of "I Go to the Rock."

Connoisseurs will spot her mother, Cissy, helping out, too, and the Georgia Mass Choir and Band will raise the hairs on the back of your neck as they join Houston in a rousing "I Love the Lord" and "Joy to the World."

The 1947 film on which this one is based, "The Bishop's Wife," starring Cary Grant as the angel, Loretta Young as the wife and David Niven as the bishop, never came close to singing out like this. Washington, in his velvet way, is the chief reason this remake approaches the suave original. And the underrated Courtney B. Vance makes the reverend's goodness more believable and admirable and less neurotic than it could have seemed. Director Penny Marshall never allows indifference or perfunctoriness to creep in, but the writing is a bit too prefab and predictable, especially shortchanging Gregory Hines as a diluted cross between Scrooge and Lionel Barrymore's meanie in "It's a Wonderful Life."

"The Preacher's Wife" is a likable film, if not a wonderful film.

Shuttling among Yonkers, Jersey City and Portland, Maine, Marshall gave the film a visual tone and unity that impart the community feeling it's after. Still, you can't help noticing the gap between Houston's singing and her acting. As an actor, she's simply not as comfortable, as free, as when she's singing. Give her a mike and a gospel choir and you can see her relax. But she's getting there. She's a lot less stiff and uneasy than she was in "The Bodyguard," and this performance represents an advance in range over her work in "Waiting to Exhale." Meanwhile, she delivers musically and her costars handle the rest.