Hope Floats

Forest Whitaker may be the George Cukor of the '90s. Like Cukor, Whitaker makes movies about the fantastical reality of women's lives. His first film, Waiting to Exhale, had the entire country holding its breath while its quartet of African American women plowed through Mr. Wrongs to get to Mr. Right. And Whitaker's second film, Hope Floats, may have a similar effect. Sandra Bullock plays a former prom queen who, when her prom-king husband reveals (on national television!) that he's been having an affair with her best friend, packs up the car and heads home to mother (Gena Rowlands), her young daughter in tow. Set in small-town Texas, the movie's as slow and sickly sweet as molasses, but Bullock and Harry Connick Jr. (as Mr. Right) have enough chemistry to melt a heart of steel.