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'Waiting To Exhale'
Rated R
citing to Exhale, Terry
McMillan's 1992 novel
about the lives of four
middle- and upper-mid-
dle-class black women struggling
with love in Phoenix, struck me as
contrived and wooden. The
women's characters are differen-
tiated more by their decisions than
by their interior thoughts, which
seemed didactic and forced.
In the hands of director Forest
Whitaker, however, and through
the interpretation of four strong
actresses —Angela Bassett, Whit-
ney Houston, Loretta Devine and
Lela Rochon — the movie is much
more vital and funny, if not dra-
matic.
Bassett, who received an Oscar
nomination for her portrayal of
Tina Turner in What's Love Got To
Do With It?, far and away delivers
the most moving performance as
Bernadine, a talented but frus-
trated wife dumped by her hus-
band for a white woman. She is the
only character who has an actual
problem, and Bassett conveys the
pain and rage of a scorned woman
with awesome ease.
Houston, in a role that doesn't
demand much, is fine as Savan-
nah, a TV producer who has, with
her mother's encouragement, car-
ried on an off-
MOVIES
and-on love af-
fair with a married man. Ms.
Devine as the hairdresser Gloria,
who is too busy raising a son to
care too much about herself, and
Ms. Rochon, as the single woman
who uses sex to nab the wrong
man over and over again, are
charming. They are smart enough,
despite poor judgment, but we hear
too much about what they think
and see too little of what they do
— one of the book's flaws. And they
engage in shameless male bashing
that would embarrass even a mil-
itant feminist.
With the exception of one male
in the film, played by Wesley
Snipes, the others that pass
through are, at best, slimy. Mr.
Snipes' character, a well-spoken
civil-rights attorney, reveals to
Bernadine that he is devoted to his
white wife, who is dying of cancer
— a kind of poetic counterpoint to
the four women's rage at the white
woman who "stole" Bernadine's
husband.
But that is the only subtlety the
movie manages. Because it lacks
dramatic tension, Waiting to Ex-
hale seems to go on much longer
than it should.
1Q.k.)
— Julie Edgar
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'Four Rooms'
Rated R
ou probably won't find the
Mon Signor inAAA's Guide
to Five Star Hotels. The
rooms are stale and tacky,
the bellhop has a nervous tick and
the place seems to attract the most
undesirable of guests. This dilapi-
dated house of lodging is the set-
ting for the Miramax release Four
Rooms, and chances are you won't
find this film on anyone's list of
five-star movies, either.
Essentially, this is a gimmick
production, with four directors each
controlling a particular room (and
story line) of the Mon Signor Ho-
tel on New Year's Eve. Other than
location and time,
the only common
MOVIES
thread among the
four vignettes is
that they are serviced by a bellhop
named Ted, played by Tim Roth.
This is Ted's first night on the job
and before anyone can shout,
"Happy New Year," he has been
seduced, assaulted, threatened and
bribed by a succession of witches,
adulterers and assorted
scoundrels. Adorned in full bellhop
regalia, Tim Roth's twitchy bellboy
comes off like the humorless love
child of Pee Wee Herman and Jim
Carrey. The rest of the movie isn't
much better.
With a quartet of hot directors
including Allison Anders, Alexan-
Y
-
dre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez
and Quentin Tarantino, and a cast
featuring Antonio Banderas,
Madonna, Marissa Tomei and Jen-
nifer Beals, this could have been
an enjoyable cinematic experience.
Though the concept of several lit-
tle movies in one isn't entirely nov-
el, having been done previously in
New York Stories by Woody Allen
and Martin Scorsese, it does lend
itself to countless possibilities and
can be very appealing to those with
a short attention span. Unfortu-
nately, Four Rooms resembles a
series of "Saturday Night Live"
skits that drag on too long. Each
segment has an engaging premise
that ends up going nowhere, and
in no particular hurry. As a result,
the audience begins to twitch more
than the bellboy.
Now, there is nothing wrong
with trying fresh approaches to
movie making and, in fact, Taran-
tino and Company should be laud-
ed, at the very least, for taking a
chance. But, in limiting the spatial
and temporal scope of each vi-
gnette, the directors must rely
heavily on the strength of the con-
cept and the intelligence of their
stories, leaving little room for er-
ror. In the case of Four Rooms,
there is plenty of room for im-
provement.
—Richard Halprin
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