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Waiting to Exhale

Play trailer 2:39 Poster for Waiting to Exhale R 1995 2h 1m Comedy Drama Romance Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
56% Tomatometer 34 Reviews 79% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
Navigating through careers, family and romance, four friends bond over the shortcomings in their love lives -- namely, the scarcity of good men. Both as the "other woman," Savannah (Whitney Houston) and Robin (Lela Rochon) carry on relationships with married men, each believing their lovers will leave their wives for them. On the flip side, Bernadine (Angela Bassett) ends up alone when her husband divorces her for his mistress. Meanwhile, Gloria (Loretta Devine) finds love with a new neighbor.
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Waiting to Exhale

Waiting to Exhale

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Critics Consensus

Waiting to Exhale looks at life's ups and downs from an underseen perspective -- albeit one that's poorly served by uneven acting and a sporadically interesting story.

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Critics Reviews

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Geoff Brown The Times (UK) 12/20/2023
The film, based on Terry McMillan's novel, no doubt began with higher ambitions than magazine fiction to be read under a hairdrier: but its development is so bald and the colors so glossy that magazine fiction is the result. Go to Full Review
Hugo Davenport Daily Telegraph (UK) 12/20/2023
It comes across as a bland buppie soap opera, with scant storyline outside the shortcomings of a series of more or less useless, unattractive, unreliable or married men. Go to Full Review
Nigel Andrews Financial Times 12/20/2023
Glutinous but pseudo-feminist. Go to Full Review
Sheila Reid Women in the Life 05/13/2022
Director Forest Whitaker deserves a huge round of applause for bringing this overbloated story to the big screen screen in a succinct yet heartwarming manner. Go to Full Review
Justin Brown Medium Popcorn 12/31/2020
3/5
I did enjoy watching this. It wasn't painful. Go to Full Review
Tatiana Albandos Medium Popcorn 12/31/2020
3/5
This soundtrack is bomb. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Farah R. @Farah 5d Grounded in the stellar performances of its lead actresses, Waiting to Exhale offers an impactful tale of womanhood. It does get a bit too melodramatic at times, but it works with the orchestral score and vintage look of the 90s. See more Renaissance M @RenaissanceMan Jan 15 Reasonably good, if a bit soap opera-ish. It tells the story of four friends over the course of a year. It does focus exclusively on romance as a means to improve one's life in a way that feels regressive today, but not bad overall. See more moon s Jan 9 beautiful cast of angela bassett, whitney houston, lela rochon and loretta devine. i admire angelas and savannah's strength and wish the best for robin, but i absolutely love the kind and humanizing nature of gloria, her voice is so sweet, the 2 hr long movie is several stories tied into one making you feel like a lesson learned through others lives, a must watch and a 90s classic See more Shakera @Shakikiiiiiii Dec 30 Absolutely loved it! Black womanhood and friendship personified. Also very nostalgic! Amazing soundtrack also. See more VITALII H @freakynickison Dec 23 Watched it for the first time and definitely not for the last. The movie felt so cozy, funny, true and simple that it lightened up my mood. It’s about the marriage, friendship and livelihood in general. I absolutely loved the music that was used in it. I really enjoyed this film and didn’t want it to end. See more Geoff M @Geoffiam Oct 16 There's less context than in McMillan's novel, and more lingerie. But the theme of (black) women searching for acceptance and empowerment is equally strong, especially in Angela Bassett's gale-force performance as Bernadine. See more Read all reviews
Waiting to Exhale

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Movie Info

Synopsis Navigating through careers, family and romance, four friends bond over the shortcomings in their love lives -- namely, the scarcity of good men. Both as the "other woman," Savannah (Whitney Houston) and Robin (Lela Rochon) carry on relationships with married men, each believing their lovers will leave their wives for them. On the flip side, Bernadine (Angela Bassett) ends up alone when her husband divorces her for his mistress. Meanwhile, Gloria (Loretta Devine) finds love with a new neighbor.
Director
Forest Whitaker
Producer
Deborah Schindler, Ezra Swerdlow
Screenwriter
Terry McMillan, Ronald Bass
Distributor
20th Century Fox
Production Co
20th Century Fox
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 22, 1995, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 25, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA)
$64.2M
Runtime
2h 1m
Sound Mix
Surround, Stereo
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