Girl Talk

Date: January 16, 1997
By Steven Poole

From The Independent (London)
Submitted by: Larry A.


The Preacher's Wife
Directed by Penny Marshall (U)

You could never accuse Whitney Houston of under-emoting. When miming to her songs on film, she wobbles her lower lip in time with the vibrato. This means that she's really feeling the song. You want to say to her: "Whitney, baby, if your performance is making you that sad, why don't you stop? It's been depressing the pants off the rest of us for years." But she presses on, like a sparrow on amyl nitrate, stuffing as many pointless runs up and down the scales as she can into each syllable. It's the same in The Preacher's Wife, the latest Whitney movie-product designed, among other things, to sell the latest Whitney CD featuring the soundtrack songs.

The Preacher's Wife is a gospel-hued Christmas comedy. Never mind that Christmas happens to be over, there's Whitney product to shift. Whitney is the titular spouse, it's coming up to Yuletide and preacher Henry (Courtney B Vance) has got problems: his son's best friend has been taken into care; one of his teenage parishioners has been wrongly fitted up for armed robbery; greasy property developer Joe Hamilton (Gregory Hines) wants to tear down his church; oh, and his marriage is at breaking-point, too. He prays to God for help - no sooner done than an angel falls from the sky. But Henry doesn't believe he's an angel, and Whitney takes an erotic shine to the newcomer.

Everything that is most emetic about Hollywood is here: kids' nativity plays, stupid hack moralising, an evil plug for Microsoft, and endless ear-punishing displays by Whitney, who happens to be leader of the gospel choir in Henry's church. But the angel is played by Denzel Washington, who delivers his hokey lines with such twinkly understatement that he almost redeems the whole mess. This is great comic acting, against all the odds. Still, the biggest laugh comes last. As the angel walks away in the final shot, the camera pans out to show that the name of the urban thoroughfare is Elm Street, as in Wes Craven's seminal horror movie. Yes, Denzel, it's been a nightmare: get the hell out while you can.