Waiting To Exhale (1995)

Sight and Sound
"....[Angela Bassett] turns in quite a powerful performance..." 02/01/1996 p.56

Entertainment Weekly
"...An exhilarating blast...[with a] strong cast..." -- Rating: B 01/19/1996 p.41

Variety
"...An appealing cast and skilled and imaginative direction by Forest Whitaker....Bassett again proves her gifts with a performance at once fiery and delicate..." 12/18/1995

Los Angeles Times
"...Pleasant....Grounded in a smooth, wall-to-wall soundtrack written by Kenneth 'Babyface" Edmonds....WAITING TO EXHALE is easy listening for the eyes..." 12/22/1995 p.F1

Chicago Sun-Times
"...This is a debut directing job by Forest Whitaker, and somehow the tone of the film resembles his own acting: measured, serene, confident..." 12/22/1995 p.39

Washington Post 0 of 10
If men are from Mars and women from Venus, then Waiting to Exhale is definitely required viewing for Venusians. The scene that primarily comes to mind is when Angela Bassett, left for a white woman by rich husband Michael Beach, dumps her spouse's clothes into his fancy convertible, and sets fire to the whole thing. She then walks back into her house, vindicated, as the inferno rages in her front yard. Yeah, she's upset... But even if scenes like this make Martians sit low in their seats, this sister-celebratory adaptation of Terry McMillan's best-selling book is frequently delightful... With such a plurality of developments, Exhale could easily lose itself in the shuffle. But it's fluid and emotional, thanks to a crisp, witty script by McMillan and Ronald (Rain Man) Bass, tremendous performances by the principals (playing emotionally wounded seems to come easily to all of them--take that, Bobby Brown) and sensitive direction by Forest Whitaker. Bassett, especially, conveys the pain of brutalized self-esteem. But just when she's sinking into a morass of funk guaranteed to alienate everyone, she meets a surprising Mr. Right, played by a surprise guest stud. To find out who it is, you'll just have to [see for yourself]. - Desson Howe
 
USA Today 0 of 10
Angela Bassett as Bernadine ignites the screen like an acetylene torch. After she uses her estranged husband's designer clothes as bonfire kindling, guys might want to take out insurance on their own wardrobes. Nothing else matches this too-early peak... On the plus side, Whitaker and writers McMillan and Ron Bass (The Joy Luck Club) retain much of the book's earthy language and bawdy bedroom humor. Actors such as Gregory Hines and unbilled Wesley Snipes shine as Mr. Rights among the parade of losers. But Exhale undercuts its strengths with an attack of the cutes, such as a balcony brouhaha set to the Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet. Lela Rochon as sexpot Robin and Loretta Devine as plump single-mom Gloria each deliver memorable moments. But Whitney Houston isn't able to lean on her natural flamboyance as the more sedate Savannah... - Susan Wloszczyna,
 
ReelViews 6 of 10
The first thing to note about Waiting to Exhale, Forest Whitaker's theatrical feature debut as a director, is that it will likely be a huge success with its target audience. Many black women will see themselves in this motion picture, and, subconsciously using their personal background to fill in gaps left by the screenplay, they will declare this film a triumph. I wish I could be as positive with my opinion, but I found Waiting to Exhale to be seriously flawed -- a string of connected vignettes that propel the four main characters along easily predicted character arcs...Whitaker's direction, like the tone, is uneven. Some of the switches from comedy to drama are forced and abrupt. That said, however, Waiting to Exhale contains a fair number of genuinely humorous sequences, many of which make pointed comments about male insensitivity...No doubt about it -- this is a "women's movie" (or, as it's alternatively referred to, a "chick flick"), but it's among the year's weakest. How to Make an American Quilt and Moonlight and Valentino covered comparable ground earlier in 1995, and there are similarities between Waiting to Exhale and The Joy Luck Club (especially since co-writer Ronald Bass was involved in the book-to-screen transition of Amy Tan's novel). Of all those films, however, this one has the most artificial and disjointed "feel". Personally, I don't buy the "male bashing" accusation that has been leveled at Waiting to Exhale. The treatment of men in the movie seems fine, and there are other problems more worthy of attention. Given the dearth of significant roles for black women in motion pictures, it's refreshing to see these four bonding on the big screen -- and that's almost reason enough for this film to have been made. Nevertheless, it's difficult to deny that another layer of substance is needed to lift the movie about this superficial level of melodrama. - James Berardinelli
 
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale mesmerized its readers with vivid descriptions of what a black woman wants in her man, and how hard it is to find it. Women loved it; men were not so thrilled. A friend of mine suggested that the male version of Waiting to Exhale would be much shorter: "What I'm looking for in a woman is someone who's great in bed, and then turns into a six-pack and a pizza." That is, of course, exactly the problem: The women in Waiting to Exhale are tired of being treated as disposable commodities by men who will tell them anything before sex and have nothing to say afterward...As the movie version opens, broadcast executive Savannah (Whitney Houston) is driving from Denver, where there are apparently no men worth having, to Phoenix, where she hopes there are...This is a debut directing job by Forest Whitaker, and somehow the tone of the film resembles his own acting: measured, serene, confident. I am not sure that is always the right tone, however. There are times when the material needs more sharpness, harder edges and bitter satire instead of bemused observation..."Waiting to Exhale" is not really an assault on black men (and men in general), but an escapist fantasy that women in the audience can enjoy by musing, "I wish I had her problems" - and her car, house, wardrobe, figure and men, even wrong men...On that level, of soap opera and sociological melodrama, however, the movie does work. I was never bored. Occasionally one of the actresses broke out of the mold, as when Bassett coolly dealt with the firemen after torching her husband's car, and I got a glimpse of the energies that could be unleashed in this material. But for the most part, the movie's content to be an entertainment with a women's magazine angle; its patron saint could be Mae West, who wanted more men in her life, and more life in her men. - Roger Ebert