Où sont les hommes?

While this movie truly is bound to be more appealing to women than men, it is a touching story of four best friends. How they stick together and grow together through life's mistakes, joys, and bad taste in men. I love Angela Bassett and she is outstanding in this movie. The other 3 ladies, Whitney,Lela, and Loretta do great jobs too. This movie is filled with sweet moments, great laughter, and maybe some tears. Just a wonderful movie that shows what friendship is about. I have not read the book, but I have heard many times that the book is better... but hey thats true for almost every book turned movie. So all I know is I love this movie, and every time I watch it, it gives me great pleasure. Not too mention the soundtrack is fabulous! Whitney, Brandy, Babyface,Faith Evans,and Mary J Blige make the music in the film absolutely great.

The Feature Film version of the MacMillan Novel was a welcome change from all the "Hood" movies that were being released. Unlike the Hood movies "Exhale" did not have a plot that revolved around: violence,drugs, and guns. Instead it was a more Upscale drama. If you read the book the roles were cast perfectly with the exception of the woman that played Savannah. Angela Bassett as Bernadine, Lela Rochon as Robin; Loretta Devine as Gloria; could not have been better casted, if the movie were done over a thousand times!

Unfortunately Terry MacMillan allowed the project to get too commercial, thus compromising her craft! One verification of this is the exporting of Whitney Houston from the Music Industry to fill the lead as Savannah. The part of Savannah demanded a lot of acting ability. They could've gotten Theresa Randall, Robin Givens or Tyra Ferrell to do the lead, but they didn't. Instead they hired a pop diva in an effort to get millions of her fans into the cineplexes; and of course sing on the Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds produced soundtrack! Needless to say the grammy Award winner gave a highly unimpressive performance!

As for the directing; now Forest Whittaker's my boy, but the direction needed a womans touch! The story was supposed to be about feminine friendship, and all the complications that go with it.

Despite the box-office success of "Waiting to Exhale" it failed to produce a demand for more Upscale Black Dramas! Macmillan had to do it herself in her follow up book turned movie "How Stella Got Her Groove Back!"

Read my review of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back"

I read some of the other comments comcerning this movie. And personally i thought that this movie was greatly misinterpreted. This movie (while have some "man-bashing" elements) is more about the friendship of four strong real black women who represent a little part of most women in society. I love this movie. I think that it has humor, depth, and presents a very real perspective on love and dating in today's world. And while men might take offense to the representation of the male gender in this movie, I think that it's important to realize that unfaithful, self-absorbed men do exist. However, as we must acknowledge the less moral men of our society, this movie also portrays that good decent men are not a figment of our imagination. With Wesley Snipes and Gregory Hines characters, we see that men are not all callous unfeeling creatures. So basically, I feel that this movie is one to be appreciated and enjoyed. (And in response to one respone that i read. . . One does not CHOOSE who they fall in love with, love just happens. We cannot choose who we love.) Anyways. . .i loved the part where she burned all the clothes too :)

I got an opportunity to see Waiting To Exhale for the second time recently, the first time shortly after it came out, and now now. I can't say time has improved my thoughts of the film, which is odd, as I seemed to recall really enjoying this the first time it came out. (Maybe I should watch 'Homeward Bound' again, as I LOVED that movie the first time I saw it) The only actress really to impress in this movie is of course the amazing Angela Bassett who growls and hisses every chance she gets! I really liked this character, and I felt for the trials she was going through. The other character I liked was the one played by Loretta Devine, who was cute as the overweight mother who unexpectedly falls in love. I kind of thought the Lela Rachon character was underwritten, and seemed to almost revel in her wantonness. lol. As for Miss Houston, when I was watching her "act", well, Chesty Morgan's performance in "Deadly Weapons" came to mind for some odd reason, as it appears the acting thing was becoming a struggle, and wasn't going to last for too long.. All in all, I wasn't really disappointed in the film, it just slid off...

This was a good movie, even though I'm not the target audience. It's nice to see that black women had a movie about them, and thanks to the star power of Whitney Houston it became no.1 and was a big hit. I am actually tired of reading little comments saying that Whitney isn't that good of an actress because all of those comments are based on the fact that she's a singer. If she wasn't a famous singer, nobody would say anything bad about her acting. IMO, she acted very well just like in all her movies, she's not an oscar caliber actress (very few are) but she definitely has screen presence, charisma and gets the job done. Stop hating her because she's a singer, unlike Madonna or Mariah, Whitney at least did some quality work with some quality people, and she hasn't had flops & horrible movies.