`How Stella Got Her Groove Back” is another of novelist-screenwriter Terry McMillan’s tales of love and laughs among the black bourgeoisie. And it runs pretty true to form. Anyone who liked the movie of McMillan’s “Waiting to Exhale” will almost certainly groove on this one, too.
Why shouldn’t they? “Stella” — adapted once again by McMillan and co-writer Ron Bass (“Rain Man”) — is a bit sexier and funnier than “Waiting to Exhale.” The reggae and blues-laced Michel Colombier score is just as sensual.
And “Stella” has just what its predecessor had: a smart, sassy, stunning, tough and together heroine (Angela Bassett as the temporarily grooveless 40-year-old knockout stockbroker Stella Payne), wisecracking with her slightly less sassy sisters while sifting through hordes of obnoxious men in search of the elusive top catch.
In this case, Mr. Wonderful is a 20-year-old Jamaican named Winston Shakespeare (Taye Diggs), who works near the resort where Stella and best buddy Delilah (Whoopi Goldberg) vacation after Stella loses her job. (Only in a movie like this would a single working mother go on a Jamaican holiday after getting fired.)
Stella is facing one of life’s turning points. Should she become a lone ranger stockbroker and stick it to her creepy old bosses, who fired their best employee because a merger left them overstaffed? Should she chase an earlier dream of designing custom furniture?
Or should she just take a trip to the moon on gossamer wings with irresistibly available Winston?
If you can’t guess what happens first, you obviously didn’t read the movie title. But while Stella gets in the groove, problems arise. Scads of unappealing, clueless and self-infatuated males swarm around starlit Stella — including two pro footballers who resemble homegrown versions of Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd’s wild and crazy Czechoslovakian brothers. And happy-go-lucky chum Delilah develops alarming symptoms (weariness, closeups, hospital beds and fits of worldly wise jokes) of that dreaded romance-movie affliction, the sudden fatal disease.
In the midst of this reggae reckoning, Stella finds the almost suspiciously perfect Winston: smart and romantic, devoted and truthful, witty and indefatigable, with impeccably rich (if snobbish) parents.
The dramatic crisis of “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” comes when Stella returns to Frisco followed by her lovelorn superswain and faces the world’s disapproval: ribald family gatherings and gabfests with friends and sisters (at least some of them) who think she’s having a starry-eyed fling.
There are other complications. Stella’s bosses insist on offering her back her old job, having discovered they can’t run the brokerage without her. And once Delilah starts really dying, she steals the whole movie so thoroughly that nobody recovers.
Goldberg makes the movie. Single-handedly, she gets “Stella” back in the groove. Her part — lusty, let-it-all-hang-out Delilah — was virtually invented for the film (from a tiny part of the book), and she’s responsible for most of what’s good in it. Goldberg gives the story what it needs most: an earthy, unselfish warmth that cuts through the me-obsessed yuppieism of McMillan’s flashy milieus. I can’t think of many actresses who could have brought off Delilah’s big hospital scene — much less made it the comedy highlight of the movie. (The picture might have been better, and definitely more daring, if Goldberg and Bassett had switched parts.)
“Stella,” like “Waiting to Exhale,” is another combination of humorous chatter, put-downs and wish-fulfillment fantasy — with just enough reality, in the dialogue and plot, to keep wishful audiences hooked.
And it’s better-looking. Though well-directed by Forest Whitaker, “Waiting to Exhale” had a fairly ordinary visual style. The subject matter and target audience were what made it special. Kevin Rodney Sullivan, by contrast, gives “Stella” much more pictorial oomph and pizazz.
The cast, too, is good; Goldberg and Bassett glow in their roles. But, even though writer McMillan based this story on her own Jamaican amour (with Jonathan Plummer, to whom her book is dedicated), the central romance is probably believable only if you want it to be. Winston is too perfect. The plums drop too easily in Stella’s basket. The party starts too soon. Besides, she looks a bit too young and he doesn’t act young enough.
But the gloss is there. The writing is snappy and bright, and the settings even posher and prettier than, say, the old Universal backdrops for the similar September-May rendezvous of Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in “Magnificent Obsession” and “All That Heaven Allows.” Under the hands of the writers and first-time theatrical feature director Sullivan (a “Happy Days” cast veteran who shot “Soul of the Game” for TV), this movie delivers just about everything its core audience is probably looking for.
But is that all we should be looking for?
In America, sex, fame and money tend to be the main currency of success — which is unfortunately the case in McMillan’s books, too. If “Waiting to Exhale” was McMillan’s equivalent for “Fear of Flying,” Erica Jong’s bawdy, best-selling sexual confessional, then “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” may be her version of Jong’s self-obsessed “How to Save Your Life” — another fictionalized memoir about the writer’s life-enhancing affair with a younger man. But wouldn’t you expect rich, famous writers who’ve just topped the best-seller lists, to have a few younger men, or younger women, running after them? McMillan gives Stella everything but her own literary fame, and that evasion may be what gives the story a slightly phony ring. Luckily, this movie about making whoopee and saving your life and groove has Whoopi around to make it (sometimes) work.
”HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK”
(star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan; written by Terry McMillan and Ron Bass, based on the novel by McMillan; photographed by Jeffrey Jur; edited by George Bowers; production designed by Chester Kaczenski; music by Michel Colombier; produced by Deborah Schindler. A 20th Century Fox release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:04. MPAA rating: R (language, sensuality, nudity).
THE CAST
Stella Payne …………………….. Angela Bassett
Delilah …………………………. Whoopi Goldberg
Winston Shakespeare ………………. Taye Diggs
Vanessa …………………………. Regina King
Angela ………………………….. Suzzanne Douglas
Quincy Payne …………………….. Michael J. Pagan
