ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995            TAG: 9512270037
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW 
SOURCE: CARRIE RICKEY KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE 

GO SEE `EXHALE' ON GIRLS' NIGHT OUT

Girlfriend, it's not great. But ``Waiting to Exhale'' sure is fun. Four sisters commiserate about the man shortage, rid themselves of some hounds who are dogging them, and rise like phoenixes from the ashes of their failed romances in - where else? - Phoenix.

So what if it's never explained why four women of such diverse educational and economic backgrounds become bosom buds? (In the Terry McMillan best-seller on which the film's based, they either worked at or patronized the same beauty salon.)

The movie boasts great scenery, great clothes and two great performances - from Angela Bassett as Bernadine, the goddess whose husband leaves her for a bottle blonde, and from Wesley Snipes (uncredited) as an attorney she meets in a hotel bar.

For most of the film, you breathe normally. But the sequences that Bassett and Snipes share are breathtaking and heart-stopping. Their voices are so quiet, they draw you in. Their body English is so intimate that kissing is beside the point. This is acting of the first magnitude. When they're on screen, the theater is so quiet that Milk Duds don't dare rustle in their boxes.

Retooled for the screen by McMillan and screenwriter Ron Bass, ``Waiting to Exhale'' raises some basic structural questions.

Chief of which: How do you make a sweeping story out of vignettes? You don't, answers the movie. Actor-turned-filmmaker Forest Whitaker directs ``Waiting to Exhale'' as a revue.

Bassett is glam as Bernadine, the wronged wife who fights to keep her hilltop home with the best carnelian-colored sunsets in the West.

Whitney Houston is wan as Savannah, a TV exec trying to shake off her married lover (Dennis Haysbert), who's forever promising to leave his wife. Alas, the songbird-turned-actress has phoned in her performance from her own private Idaho.

Lela Rochon is comely as Robin, the promiscuous accountant who is like flypaper for unsuitable suitors.

Loretta Devine is genuinely affecting as Gloria, single mom and salon owner who has her hands full with her son, Tarik (Donald Adeosun Faison), and her eyes on handyman neighbor Marvin (Gregory Hines, whose low-key charm is a relief from the film's shriller diversions).

As a director, Whitaker does not break any new ground. He is filming in a landscape where he could point the camera anywhere and get a photogenic butte. He is working with some of the most accomplished talent available and needs only to train the camera on their mugs. Disturbingly often, he trains the camera on the crotches and posteriors of his male stars. Does he think those are the areas the female characters are looking at? Or is he trying to tell us something?

What is revolutionary here is that Whitaker shows something that hasn't been on screen before: a quartet of fine-looking black women sitting around talking. This in itself might not be enough for a good movie, but it's just enough for a good time.

Waiting to Exhale

** 1/2

A Twentieth Century Fox production showing at Valley View Mall 6. Rated R for sexual candor, sex, profanity, drugs. 2 hours.

LENGTH: Medium:   69 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  Whitney Houston (left) plays Savannah, who moves from 
          Denver to Phoenix intent on fulfilling her ambitions, and Lela 
          Rochon plays the highly successful, sexually adventurous Robin in 
          ``Waiting to Exhale.'' color.