Unifying Experience ‘Waiting To Exhale’ Is A Movie That Appears To Have Come Out At Just The Right Time

Connie Pulliam, a Los Angeles County probation officer, took 36 of her closest friends to the movies late Saturday - celebrating her 50th birthday a month late in order to catch “Waiting to Exhale,” the story of four black women in search of Mr. Right.

“Women in the theater were shouting things out, co-signing to things presented on the screen,” recalled Judy Kingston, who attended the Pulliam party. “‘Exhale’ is a training film about the pitfalls to avoid in relationships. It was a unifying experience for many of us.”

Bolstered by women, primarily black, the $15 million 20th Century Fox release opened with a whopping $14.1 million in box-office receipts to capture the four-day holiday weekend’s No. 1 spot.

Though Terry McMillan’s 1992 novel sold more than 3 million copies, the magnitude of the response came as something of a surprise. Four hundred people were turned away from a promotional screening. A man at Houston’s AMC’s Meyer Park complex bought 300 tickets on opening day. The Magic Johnson Theatres in Los Angeles showed the film on six of its 12 screens and still managed to sell out. Exit polls nationwide show that 70 percent of the audience is female and 65 percent is black.

Yvonne Divans Hutchinson, an English teacher, rented a limo with friends to attend the film. “There’s a great sense of anticipation and excitement in the African-American community,” said Hutchinson, who, like several of those interviewed, found the film wanting but is glad that it’s there.

The film, which received mostly positive reviews nationwide, is filling a void, said Newsweek film critic David Ansen. “The black audience is fed up with inner-city, ghetto stories that speak to only a small section of their community,” he said, alluding to well-reviewed movies such as Spike Lee’s “Clockers” and the Hughes brothers’ “Dead Presidents,” which failed to ignite. “There’s a great hunger for projects about the middle-class experience, especially from a female point of view. Since women of all colors are frustrated with male-female relationships, much of ‘Exhale’s‘ appeal is gender-based.”

The movie is about priorities, self-definition and getting through the day, said producer Deborah Schindler, who, with her partner Ezra Swerdlow persuaded the studio to buy the rights three years ago. “I didn’t go in thinking ‘niche film’ and, if the studio did, they never mentioned it to us,” she said. “The challenge was to make it true to the African-American community in a way that transcended it.”

Tracking studies indicated there was an audience to be tapped, said Tom Sherak, Fox’s senior executive vice president. One hundred percent of the black women polled indicated “definite interest” in the Forest Whitaker film, which stars Angela Bassett and Whitney Houston. Eighty-five percent made it their first choice in the marketplace.

“The question was whether it would translate into box office,” said Sherak, who planned to add 150 theaters to the run - all in ethnically diverse major markets - by this weekend. “Who knew that the film would become to the AfricanAmerican community what ‘Jurassic Park’ was to the public at large? Men aren’t responding as positively as women, but the good news is that they aren’t turned off.”

“The bottom line is that all men are not dogs and not all women are sitting around waiting to exhale,” said Janice Sylve, a 42-year-old legal secretary.