Winged Creatures And Wild Ones

Date: January 17, 1997
By Helen Meany and Hugh Linehan

From The Irish Times
Submitted by: Larry A.


"The Preacher's Wife" (Gen), Virgin, Savoy, UCI Coolock, Tallaght, Omniplex, Santry

Angels, it seems, are making a comeback, or so publishers marketing departments have been assuring us recently. But forget any suggestion of metaphor or symbolism in The Preacher's Wife we have an impeccably dressed angel called Dudley, irrefutably incarnate in the form of Denzel Washington, who takes his instructions from on high and is far too substantial to dance on a pinhead.

He is more than willing, however, to dance with the preacher's sweet natured wife (Whitney Houston), who has been a bit neglected of late by her well meaning, harassed husband (Courtney B. Vance), who has lost his belief in himself and is about to let his parish church be bought by the town's greedy developers. Enter Dudley to sort out his problems.

This is less a Hollywood riposte to Wim Wender's allusive Wings of Desire and Far Away, So Close, than an attempt by the director Penny Marshall to recreate the easy charm of 1940s comedies such as It's A Wonderful Life, and The Bishop's Wife, directed by Henry Koster in 1947, on which this film is loosely based.

Somewhere in the transformation and updating process the charm has become calculated and the tone nostalgic for small town, neighbourly, black America; the character of Dudley seems merely smarmy and ingratiating as he attempts to ease the tensions between the couple, and the whole fable about the revival of goodness and faith in the community is unbearably sentimental.

It's not clear what the audience for this is; it's a Christmas tale, which is about as welcome in January as turkey fricasse. Presumably Whitney Houston fans will enjoy it; we certainly get to see a lot of her singing, in and out of church, and this is gospel music at its most rousing, with the backing of members of the Georgia Mass Choir and Band, all beaming beatifically. As for Denzel Washington, he could certainly do with a guardian angel to help him select his roles, since he has made some peculiar choices recently, including this one.