1995 Ebony Magazin
Waiting to Exhale
Ebony, Dec, 1995 by Lynn Norment
Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett light up the silver screen just in time for the holidays in the anticipated film adaptation of Terry McMillan’s enormously popular novel, Waiting To Exhale. The movie, a frank look at women’s friendships and sexuality, is the provocative story of four Black women and their trials and tribulations as they navigate through the pitfalls of relationships with husbands and lovers.
Whitney Houston, the world renowned Grammy Award-winning recording star who made her acting debut in the blockbuster movie The Bodyguard in 1992, stars as the lead character, Savannah Jackson, who is a sexy, single young woman who returns from Denver to Phoenix, where she hopes to become a successful television producer and snag the long elusive Mr. Right in the process.
Bernadine Harris, Savannah’s good friend, is portrayed by Angela Bassett, who has won accolades and acclaim for her sterling portrayal of Tina Turner in the film What’s Love Got To Do With It, a role for which she received an Academy! Award nomination, and as Betty Shabazz in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. As the new film opens, Bernadine has just learned that her husband, after years of mistreating her and taking her for granted, has left her–along with their house, BMW and two children–and run off with their money and his young White bookkeeper. Suddenly single, Bernadine is incensed and boiling with anxieties about the turn her life has taken, and the action only heats up when she meets a new beau.
Their successful and sexually adventurous friend, Robin Stokes, is portrayed by Lela Rochon, who has appeared in Boomerang and Meteor Marl. It seems that Robin is suffering from a ’90s syndrome taken right from a television talk show: she can’t seem to stay away from lying, cheating pretty men, such as the drop-dead gorgeous Russell, portrayed by the actor Leon. Robin ignores ordinary-looking guys who are loving and adoring and most likely would make good husbands. Though Robin is supersmart when it comes to business matters, she loses all common sense when it comes to men.
The fourth actress in this talented and entertaining quartet is Loretta Devine, who portrays Gloria Johnson. Rather than seeking comfort in men like her friends, Gloria seeks solace in food. She also has a trendy hair salon and devotes considerable attention to her precocious but difficult teenage son, Tarik, portrayed by Donald A. Faison. Devine has appeared in a number of films, including Amos and Andrew, A Class Act and Little Nikita.
Waiting To Exhale was inspired by McMillan’s personal experiences as she moved through unfulfilling, sometimes explosive romantic relationships over the years. And she realized that many of her friends were in the same boat: “educated, smart, attractive…and alone.” She says it is not autobiographical, though bits of her experiences are found in each of the four characters.
In response to criticism that Black men are portrayed negatively in the movie, McMillan says there are positive male images in both the book and the film. However, she adds that the male characters were “hand-picked” to show women in certain situations and demonstrate how women make bad decisions in choosing the men in their lives. “They weren’t all dogs,” she says of her male characters. “But you have to understand, too, that these women were not exactly saints. Look at Robin. She’s a real ditz, a dummy. Her whole world revolves around men, and the men she chooses don’t treat her right. It says a lot about how she feels about herself. To make that point, we had to get a man who treated her that way.”
McMillan emphasizes that both the book and the movie are “forms of entertainment, not anthropological studies,” and that her male critics “need to go march again, stop being so immature and write their own books.”
Waiting To Exhale, with its lush, vibrant cinematography, is directed by the highly respected actor/filmmaker Forest Whitaker, who won acclaim and respect for his riveting performances before the camera in The Crying Game and Bird. “Working with this story and these performers is a filmmaker’s dream,” he says of Waiting To Exhale. “I have tremendous respect for Terry’s work, and we made sure we stayed true to her vision.”
McMillan says the director as well as the four actresses all “did a great job,” and that Loretta Devine “was the most natural” and stole a few scenes. She also says there was a great “sense of family” on the set during the 60 days of filming in Phoenix last spring. “Everybody is trying to find out if Whitney was a bitch,” says McMillan. “She isn’t. She’s really down. She’s Blacker than most people think. I like her.”
Seventy percent of the film crew was Black, with quite a few women in key positions. McMillan, who insisted on a Black director, says, “We wanted to keep it as Black as we could.”
Houston says that what she likes most about the film is that “it is African-American,” and that she got enormous support from her co-stars. “The night before shooting, the entire cast and crew got together at a local bowling alley,” Whitney recalls. “I was first on the shooting schedule, and I remember telling Angela, Loretta and Lela how nervous I was. Angela said, `Just go in there and just do it.’ My sisters were most encouraging and I won’t ever forget that.”
Working with Forest Whitaker was probably one of the most “knowledgeable experiences” she will ever have, says Houston. “Forest cares right down to the last detail. He’s very focused and always makes you feel very comfortable, like working with your brother. He’s a dear friend.”
Bassett, an experienced actress with numerous films to her credit, says working with Whitney was “wonderful” and she had a “great time” making this film. “It was a sisterhood, immediately,” she says.”The four of us bonded. Whitney is a very special lady. I felt blessed to meet her and work with her and come to know her.”
Bassett says she was working at the 20th Century Fox studio lot on another recent release in which she co-stars, the action thriller Strange Days, when she got to know Forest Whitaker. She adds that she first met Terry McMillan several years ago during the premiere of Malcolm X in New York, and at that time the author indicated she’d like Bassett to portray Savannah. “I said, `No, I want to do Bernadine,’” recalls Bassett. “I was attracted to her character.”
Bassett also says that Rochon and Devine are “perfectly cast” in their supporting roles. “Forest brings together some incredible talent,” she says of the director. “These are immensely talented performers. To see them all in one film, you will be blown away. You’ll just fall in love with all of the women and the men.”
In addition to the talented actresses, the film also features a great supporting cast of men, including Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williamson, Leon, Kelly Preston, Bill Cobbs, Wendell Pierce and Gregory Hines.
Whitney expects the film to have a big impact on the audience. “I’d like for people to leave the theater knowing that they have been schooled, let in on something that they maybe didn’t know much about before,” she says. “I hope they will have enjoyed watching the film as much as I enjoyed making it.”
Bassett says that while watching Waiting To exhale, movie audiences will at times laugh but at other times cry. “They’ll get some insight into relationships as friends and insight into relationships as lovers,” she says. “We all want someone to love us. We need friends to sustain us, and we need lovers to shore us up. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Friendship, whether platonic or romantic, is the foundation. And we forget that sometimes in our rush to be intimate and close.”
McMillan says she hopes people will understand that Black women “love and care for Black men,” and that they are not always jealous and envious of each other. “We really are supportive and have a sense of sisterhood, at least intelligent women do,” she says. “We all want to be loved and appreciated, without being taken advantage of. We want to Know that someone’s got our back, because we want them [Black men] to know that we’ve got theirs.”
