How Stella Got Her Groove Back (or just "Stella" for short) is an ok film with an already-been-done idea that has little to really offer the true movie enthusiast. Whoopi Goldberg's character's sudden elimination gave nothing to the film; but Taye Diggs (the only newcomer in this film of note ) is great in his role. He will be seen more if for no other reason than being in this movie. When I saw this movie, there were a total of 6 people in a theater designed to hold several hundred. Within a week I fully expect this movie to be gone and on it's way to video--where it's true market may be found. This is not to lead you to believe that this is a bad film, on the contrary, but I just feel that it could have been better, much better. One thing that I would like to point out that I did like is that one of the characters (Stella's sister--the pregnant one) in the film was married to a white man. This was never mentioned, was never an issue, and was well done. Eliminating racism in this way is refreshing to me. For that aspect alone I rate this flim a whole point higher than I normally would have.
All in all, I can only hope that the book from which this was based is much better.
All in all, I can only hope that the book from which this was based is much better.