The Preacher's Wife

A very long time ago I happened on "The Bishop's Wife" and really liked it, but it wasn't a Christmas classic and I never saw it again. So when I realized there was a "re-make" I was excited. I liked this story even better! I thought Whitney Houston was terrific and the rest of the characters (especially her mother) were also very enjoyable. Sometimes I just need a break from the mayhem and violence and this is a sweet, uplifting, old-fashioned Christmas pleasure I try to watch every year. If you like Denzel, if you like Lionel Ritchie, if you like Gregory Hines, and especially if you like gospel music, please give this movie a try.

This movie is not one that was made to make awards and reach the hierarchy of its peers. It was developed for the holiday season but it was also made quite simply to remind us that in life there must be faith. Much like the message at the end of the movie, just because you can't see air, doesn't mean its not there. Faith can be religious but in this movie, faith went much further and it would appear some failed to see this aspect.

Those who say their bored are perhaps the very people that need the message of the movie much like Ms. Houston. It speaks about love that is everlasting not only in the terms of religion but in our lives, relationships and our communities as a whole. It is very odd that anyone would not enjoy this movie. It is uplifting and funny, but most importantly if you are human it makes you take a serious look at those around you.

You have to wonder why some folks out in Hollywood try to remake that which was done so very well the first time. You can just see them sitting around the conference table talking about adding color and, oh, yeah, lets make the characters black! It would be OK if they really tried to do it better. But they are really just trying to cash in.

Such is the case with "The Preacher's Wife". A modernized color version of the Cary Grant vehicle, "The Bishop's Wife", the insertion of even this excellent black cast does nothing to enhance the story.

Denzel never seems to capture the sly charm of Dudley, the angel sent to help the Preacher. Now we know Denzel can be a charmer, but even he cannot deliver through this tired direction and uninspired script. Nothing really works in the movie (unless, perhaps, you never saw the original), the Preacher is not sympathetic enough, Whitney isn't at full strength as the title character, and even Gregory Hines can't seem to make the villain seem like much of a baddie.

A thorough waste of time and celluloid!

This updating of "The Bishop's Wife" has much going for it. The cast is just fine, the productional values are on a high level, and the over all intention commendable.

What "The Preacher's Wife" ends up being, however, is only an average family film. The essential difficulty, as I see it, is in Nat Mauldin and Allan Scott's screenplay.

Their script seems to lack a keen sense of structure, with too many highs and peaks, often via musical performances, which emerge inserted and bloated rather than integral and balanced.

The decision to provide Whitney Houston with full-scale musical numbers tends to more distort than enhance the film's focus. After some rip-rousing bring-down-the-house gospel fests, it seems like the end credits ought to start rolling . . . instead the play goes on anticlimactically.

Director Penny Marshall might have stepped in and ordered some sharp editing to tighten matters up and shape the film into an effective dramatic form. For this seems to be not a musical, but a light comedy/fantasy with a few incidental music interludes.

How wonderful to see the excellent Denzel Washington in a role and film in which he so lovingly believes. He invests his earnest effort into making this a winner, and he's most ingratiating in the part. Houston makes a nice costar, and the entire cast is delightful.

There's much to enjoy in "The Preacher's Wife," and there are some mighty pleasant humanistic expressions to savor and delight in along the way.

A completely ignored and under-rated life-affirming tale that never did really find an audience when released in late 1996. "The Preacher's Wife" is a remake of the "The Bishop's Wife" (a golden-age Hollywood experience from 1947 that starred Cary Grant) that works due to Denzel Washington's charming performance. Washington is an angel from Heaven who is sent to Earth to help a struggling inner-city reverend (Courtney B. Vance). Vance's church is about to fall under the hands of land developer Gregory Hines and his marriage to choir leader Whitney Houston also seems to be on the rocks. Can Washington change everyone's life for the better or will he just make matters worse? Nice direction by Penny Marshall (a film-maker who just cannot seem to get the respect she deserves) and the appealing pairing of Washington and Houston make "The Preacher's Wife" one of the better family-oriented productions of the 1990s. 4 stars out of 5.