A women's film, specifically a black women's film, more specifically a film of four black women. Although adapted from a novel by Terry McMillan, it plays as a sort of dramatization of a panel discussion on Oprah, giving voice to feelings of dissatisfaction with menfolk, as well as voice to feelings of self-worth and self-sufficiency. The voice is sometimes exactly that and no more: each of the women does duty as narrator ("Shit," comments one of them after a grinding episode of sex, "I coulda had a V-8"), and all of them are prone to talk out loud in no one's presence ("I want you to be the background in my foreground"). This air of advocacy diminishes the thing's effectiveness as drama, no matter how effective it may be as pep rally. It's all very middle-class, nonviolent, noncriminal, traditionally soap operatic. And Forest Whitaker's direction (his feature-film debut) is all soft surfaces and rounded edges, with an almost fanatical adherence to "Southwestern" colors (the setting is Phoenix), and a visual style that tends to drift into something suitable as a music video for Barry White or Teddy Pendergrass. With Angela Bassett, Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, Loretta Devine, Dennis Haysbert, Gregory Hines, and an unbilled cameo for Wesley Snipes. (1995) — Duncan Shepherd
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