Word: lela
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hyped movie, "Waiting to Exhale" is based on the best-selling, and better written, novel by Terry McMillan. The movie's central characters are four black women trying to eke out a living for themselves in Scottsdale, Arizona: Savannah (Whitney Houston), Bernadine (Angela Bassett), Gloria(Loretta Devine) and Robin (Lela Rochon). Also featured are big-screen talents Wesley Snipes, who plays Bernadine's post-marital love interest, and Gregory Hines, who plays Marvin, Gloria's last chance at romance...
...Phoenix, Arizona, and the women are black, but everything else is familiar. Bernadine (Bassett) finds that her longtime husband is deserting her; Savannah (Whitney Houston) has a lover who won't leave his wife; Gloria (Loretta Devine) can't get her bisexual ex-husband into bed; and Robin (Lela Rochon) shacks up with a virtual Fiesta Bowl Parade of losers. The men are all rotters except for two perfect guys (Gregory Hines and Wesley Snipes) who are ennobled by watching their good wives...
Houston has not yet made the same mark with her acting. In Exhale, she wisely works as part of an ensemble that includes Angela Bassett, Lela Rochon and Loretta Devine. Bassett has most of the showy scenes (in one, her character sets her adulterous husband's belongings on fire), while Houston's scenes are quieter, less demanding (an emotional phone call to her mother, a slow dance at a party). Says author McMillan: "She's going to be a really better actress when she starts seeing herself as an actress and not a singer who acts...
...project of his own. He's making his feature-film directing debut with Waiting to Exhale, the adaptation of the hugely popular 1992 novel by Terry McMillan, starring the even more popular WHITNEY HOUSTON. It's the story of four women, played by LORETTA DEVINE, Houston, ANGELA BASSETT and LELA ROCHON, who are all, for reasons mostly involving men, holding their breath. How did an actor macho enough to play a bomb expert in a bomb like Blown Away fare directing such a project? "It was intense," says Whitaker. "I have new insights into women. I can't pinpoint what...