THE PREACHER'S WIFE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Hit (BIG and AWAKENINGS) and miss (JUMPIN' JACK FLASH and RENAISSANCE MAN) director Penny Marshall tries her at a remake. She takes 1947's THE BISHOP'S WIFE with Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven and updates it for the 1990s with Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, and Courtney B. Vance. Besides the change to an almost all black cast, she switches the religion from Episcopal to Baptist and demotes the cleric to a preacher.
The major revision is that the film goes from being a full fledged movie to a good sitcom episode. The actors are pleasant enough, and there are several nice chuckles, but Marshall is content with letting everyone glide along on autopilot.
Bestowing on holiday audiences a film that teaches good morals and is for the whole family is definitely commendable. And certainly, funny little sitcoms are a popular form of entertainment. It is just that movie goers usually expect a more substantial gift. They want their presents trimmed with more involving characters and with a director with a keener eye for humor.
Looking on the good side of Penny Marshall's gift to us, THE PREACHER'S WIFE is a good spirited movie even if it is terminally lightweight.
The Rev. Henry Biggs (Courtney B. Vance) has a church in a poor section of town that is falling apart. The boiler is busted and the church is broke. You may remember Vance from THE LAST SUPPER where he was excellent as the most sinister member of a band of liberals who murdered conservatives to improve the breed. Here his performance is reduced to smiling a lot. He gives the least believable and most uninteresting characterization in the film. Vance is a much better actor than his work here demonstrates.
Always reliable Denzel Washington plays the angel Dudley, who comes down to earth to help the preacher. He explains to Henry that, "You have no idea what the competition is like just to be sent down here." Marshall has Washington play his part very low key so that you forget he is an angel. Denzel Washington's talent manages to shine through Marshall's overly mellow approach.
Whitney Houston has a soothing voice and gets to sing many a tune in the show as she plays the preacher's wife Julia. Houston's specialty, as illustrated by her work in THE BODYGUARD, is to provide the foundation about which the other stars build the movie. Kevin Costner provided the interest in THE BODYGUARD, and Houston's character was little more than focal point for the story line. Similarly in THE PREACHER'S WIFE she provides the tension between Henry and Dudley.
The script gives Houston some good lines, but she is not convincing. A putative romance between Dudley and her is little more than a couple of humorously raised eyebrows between them.
Gregory Hines plays superrich developer Joe Hamilton who wants to tear down the old church and put Henry into new digs. Joe has designed a crystal palace of a church complete with daycare center, senior citizen's facility and "a new clientele" for Henry. Joe paints a vision so attractive that the pressure is on for Henry to sale his soul to this entrepreneurial devil.
The sets and the costumes for the movie pose a problem. Whereas the exterior shots are full of graffiti filled walls and the discussions are of poverty, the people look, act, and dress firmly middle class. The rectory looks like something a wealthy church on Fifth Avenue might provide for its minister.
Although the meantime between laughs is longer than it should be, the picture does have its moments. My favorite is when Dudley comes upon a "fish typewriter" in the office. When the aquarium screensaver on the PC switches to the Microsoft Windows logo, Dudley consults the official "Angel's Handbook." This well-worn bible of religious canons has a page with the Microsoft Windows logo so that the angels can recognize mankind's key secular insignia. The Silicon Valley audience at the press screening laughed harder at this scene than any other.
More typical of the humor is the repartee among the leads. Henry defends his mother with, "She wasn't that fat." But, Julia throws it back to him with, "Policeman saw your mama come walking down the street, he'd yell, 'break it up.'"
Jenifer Lewis, as Julia's mother Marguerite Coleman, steals most of her scenes. The mother is a philosopher with an acerbic tongue. She tells her daughter, "Things haven't changed since Adam, and he gave up one of his ribs so he'd have somebody to keep things from."
In a Christmas movie season that glorifies finding a Turboman action figure for your son because "whoever doesn't is going to be a real loser," the story here comes to a refreshingly different resolution. The Biggs get their son Jeremiah (Justin Pierre Edmund) something for Christmas that truly embodies the spirit of the Christ child. This concluding aspect of the movie pushed me over the edge into being able to recommend what is otherwise a lame comedy and a lightweight remake.
THE PREACHER'S WIFE runs about 1:45 I think, but the press kit does not give the time. There are two uses of the word hell as an expletive that push the rating from G to PG. There is no sex, nudity, violence, or other profanity. The movie can be seen by the whole family, but the slowness of the pacing will probably lose the interest of those under eight. I give the film a marginal thumbs up and a rating of ** 1/2.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: December 4, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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