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How Stella Got Her Groove Back
A smart and charismatic performance from Angela Bassett in the leading role brings a little substance to 1998's How Stella Got Her Groove Back,a glossy romantic comedy that attempts to be hip and relevant, but suffers from lethargic direction and a cliched story rich with often juvenile dialogue.
Stella Payne is a workaholic 40-year old divorcee with a young son who talks her best friend, Delilah into taking a vacation to Jamaica. While on the island, Stella meets a well-built 20-year old stud named Winston Shakespeare and sparks fly. Stella initially dismisses it as an Island romance until an unemployed Winston shows up on her doorstep in Los Angeles insisting that he's in love with the woman, but some of the people in Stella's pre-Jamaica life aren't quite as accepting of Winston, particularly her bitchy sister.
As she did with Waiting To Exhale, Terry McMillan was allowed to adapt her own novel into a screenplay that tries to be some sort of battle cry for independent women of the 1990's but the story is just so contrived and convenient and overly cute that it grows tiresome very quickly. It starts when she calls Delilah (a scene-stealing turn by Whoopi Goldberg) to suggest the vacation and then calls her right back to say she cant do it right now. Even when she gets to Jamaica, her initial fighting any attempt to enjoy the island gets equally tiresome. The constant reminders about the differences in Stella and Winston's ages totally telegraph just about everything that happens here, except for the unexpected turn to melodrama involving Delilah, which made the already deadening pace of the story even more deadening and the whole story just gets way too serious after that.
Even if it wasn't in the credits, it's easy to tell that this is a Terry McMillan story because all of the women in the story are unrealistically empowered and all the men, especially Winston, are made to look like blithering idiots, but their lack of brains seems to be a non-issue when they can make a woman have an orgasm.
Angela Bassett works very hard to make Stella Payne a viable screen presence and Taye Diggs made a sex-on-legs film debut as Winston. Oscar winner Regina King steals a couple of scenes as Angela's girlfriend and Suzzanne Douglas is fun as Stella's snooty sister. A bouquet as well to Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, who makes the most of her one scene as Winston's mother, who's only a year older than Stella. This is another one of those movies that's like a beautifully wrapped package with nothing inside.
A smart and charismatic performance from Angela Bassett in the leading role brings a little substance to 1998's How Stella Got Her Groove Back,a glossy romantic comedy that attempts to be hip and relevant, but suffers from lethargic direction and a cliched story rich with often juvenile dialogue.
Stella Payne is a workaholic 40-year old divorcee with a young son who talks her best friend, Delilah into taking a vacation to Jamaica. While on the island, Stella meets a well-built 20-year old stud named Winston Shakespeare and sparks fly. Stella initially dismisses it as an Island romance until an unemployed Winston shows up on her doorstep in Los Angeles insisting that he's in love with the woman, but some of the people in Stella's pre-Jamaica life aren't quite as accepting of Winston, particularly her bitchy sister.
As she did with Waiting To Exhale, Terry McMillan was allowed to adapt her own novel into a screenplay that tries to be some sort of battle cry for independent women of the 1990's but the story is just so contrived and convenient and overly cute that it grows tiresome very quickly. It starts when she calls Delilah (a scene-stealing turn by Whoopi Goldberg) to suggest the vacation and then calls her right back to say she cant do it right now. Even when she gets to Jamaica, her initial fighting any attempt to enjoy the island gets equally tiresome. The constant reminders about the differences in Stella and Winston's ages totally telegraph just about everything that happens here, except for the unexpected turn to melodrama involving Delilah, which made the already deadening pace of the story even more deadening and the whole story just gets way too serious after that.
Even if it wasn't in the credits, it's easy to tell that this is a Terry McMillan story because all of the women in the story are unrealistically empowered and all the men, especially Winston, are made to look like blithering idiots, but their lack of brains seems to be a non-issue when they can make a woman have an orgasm.
Angela Bassett works very hard to make Stella Payne a viable screen presence and Taye Diggs made a sex-on-legs film debut as Winston. Oscar winner Regina King steals a couple of scenes as Angela's girlfriend and Suzzanne Douglas is fun as Stella's snooty sister. A bouquet as well to Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, who makes the most of her one scene as Winston's mother, who's only a year older than Stella. This is another one of those movies that's like a beautifully wrapped package with nothing inside.