How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Dallas Observer David Ehrenstein

This is escapism, pure and simple. And few know the power of such purity better than Terry McMillan.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Stella may be frothy and paper-thin, but it's also another great success for star Angela Bassett, who transforms the film into an infomercial for her considerable abilities.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

The filmmakers go to obvious pains to add a bit of nutritive value to their sweet, frothy confection.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For once, with How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Hollywood offers a love story that concentrates on the simple nuances of the romance rather than smothering us in an overly- melodramatic narrative featuring old boyfriends, jealousy, and hard-to-swallow misunderstandings.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Whether you regard Stella's getting her groove back as a feminist battle cry or as a silly wish-fulfillment fantasy, the movie delivers guilt-free escapism about pretty people having wicked-hot fun in pretty places.

Newsweek Allison Samuels

Rarely have we seen black love be this sensual.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The movie, adapted by Terry McMillan from her semi-autobiographical novel, is pointedly boundary-breaking in its positive portrayal of a May-September relationship between a younger man and an older woman.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

How Stella Got Her Groove Back tries its best to turn a paperback romance into a relationship worth making a movie about, but fails.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

A glossy, attractive, ultimately empty soap opera that -- despite being based on a true story -- never seems remotely plausible.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This lushly produced, lightweight romance embraces every cliche of the genre without so much as an ironic shrug.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan, a television veteran making his feature film debut, has fluffed up this undemanding material much as one would a pillow. But pillows have their place and so do girlfriend movies.

The New Yorker Sarah Kerr

This is Harlequin Romance land, and the film squeaks by as long as it's content to watch its lovers throwing off sparks.

Village Voice Gary Dauphin

It's not a very well-made movie, but Stella's many limitations will probably be a side issue among its target audience, irrelevant next to those repeating images of Angela being so rich and beautiful and black.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Buffed and waxed to within an inch of its life, Stella registers as more of a sequence of slick commercials than an actual drama.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

All the comedy, tragedy, and various obstacles to romance seem to have been contrived to divert the story from its tendency toward pulp erotica.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Bassett and Diggs are appealing as the slightly odd couple, but the movie rambles on too long.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The movie meanders on and on, like a bad sexual dream, until you finally wake up mumbling: Stella, please: leave that groove thang alone.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

I'm not denying that a 40-year- old woman might be self-conscious about going around with someone this young. But the subject isn't interesting or provocative enough to sustain an entire movie.

San Francisco Examiner Venise Wagner

It's a fun movie - full of laughs and touching moments.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Bassett's natural dramatic fierceness, so powerful when incited to action, is at odds with the knee-weakening sexual surrender required by the story.

Empire Angie Errigo

Director Sullivan lingers too long in every photogenic location and drags out every incident as if he's making six episodes of a not very sparkling serial.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Like "Waiting to Exhale" except more so, film jerks from scene to scene with little sense of rhythm, continuity or dramatic shaping.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

This upscale Harlequin fantasy film works much the same terrain as Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows, a '50s weepy about an affair between an older woman and a younger man, though without an iota of its wit or intelligence.