REVIEW: Waiting to Exhale

In today’s society there are a lot of women looking for love or to be loved. Some look in the wrong places. Waiting to Exhale is a movie produced in 1995 about four middle aged women living in Phoenix, Arizona, who all have different situations yet the same intentions, to find love. The movie is based solely on each of them going through their 'situationships'. They juggle loving a man and trying to love themselves at the same time by letting that man go. Although the movie was made over 20 years ago, it remains a modern classic. What makes it such a great movie is the way it tracks each of the four women's stories.

In the movie, first there is a woman named Gloria. Her story basically goes like this: she married a man and had a son with him and years later her husband announced that he was gay. Gloria struggled with loving herself because she always thought she would never find anybody new. This would make her go back to sleeping with her ex-husband. Eventually, Gloria finds someone else and she has to learn to stop going back to the wrong man and start loving the right one. The filmmakers teach that there are plenty of men in the world. You do not have to go looking; the right man will find you.

Meanwhile, Savannah’s story is a little different yet similar. Savannah is a young, beautiful business woman who makes her career the central part of her life. She never finds time for love anymore. When she does, however, she finds her way back to a married man(also her ex). This was the love of her life until they lost connection in junior high. When they finally met back up, he was a married man, but that did not stop Savannah from sleeping with him. She knew what she was doing wrong, but as we all know, some things that feel wrong we just want them to be right. Eventually, Savannah leaves her scandalous ways behind along with her ex because she realizes that if he could do that to his own wife, imagine what he could do to her. The author shows us one of the wrong ways to go about loving a man. There is always a way to make it right.

Furthermore, the next woman is Bernadine. Her husband left her for another woman. She struggled with the anger she had toward her husband for a long time, but she then gathered her emotions together and did what was best for her and her children. Meanwhile, Bernadine meets a man in a courthouse in the middle of her getting a divorce from her husband of many years. This man is married to a woman dying of cancer. He makes it clear that he is in love with his wife and would never cheat on her, but he feels Bernadine’s pain. They end up spending time together and just enjoying one another’s company. The author teaches that sometimes it is best to just have someone to confide in and talk to. Everything does not have to be about sex or even finding someone to love you.

Last but not least is Robin. Robin is a young sophisticated woman who has a similar situation to Savannah. Robin i thinks she is so in love with this one married man. And she cannot get enough of him. He leaves his wife at night and comes to sleep with Robin. She does not like the fact that she is second in his life, but it takes her a while to make the right decision and leave. After juggling with another relationship Robin finds out that she is pregnant and she makes the decision to raise her child on her own, without her “married man”. The author teaches that you do not have to force love upon yourself just to make yourself feel better.

In conclusion, the author gives us four women and four different situations of finding love. They all ended with victory but were all full of deceit. It took these women some time to realize their wrong doings, but they all came out a new person and with a new focus on life.