Real Life Imitates the Movies in Jamaica

OCHO RIOS, Jamaica — It's a "Stella moment" on the beach.

A handsome young Jamaican with bulging pectorals strides up to three middle-aged women strolling barefoot by the sea. His opening gambit is an invitation to ride on his glass-bottom boat.

Then the real business: "Yes mon, my friend and I noticed you last night. You were wearing sneakers," he says to one.

"Oh yeah?"

"We said, 'Those are oldies but goldies!' " he continues.

"How dare you!" The woman's brassy American accent is a marked contrast to the melodious Jamaican one. "Didn't your mother teach you how to talk to ladies? 'Oldies?' "

The women storm off past a fence that cordons off their all-inclusive resort, leaving their suitor behind.

David Patrick, about 30, scratches an ear ruefully but takes the rejection in stride.

"Women been coming in droves since that movie," he says.

He's talking about "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," the summer movie about a woman who goes to Jamaica, falls in love with a man half her age and rediscovers her enthusiasm for life.

"It's not just Americans," Patrick says. "Englishwomen, Germans, Swiss--they all say the same thing: that they've come to get their groove back."

The movie was based on a book by Terry McMillan, whose book and movie "Waiting to Exhale" caused a similar sensation among black American women. She said she kept running into women who bought tickets to Jamaica after "Stella" became a bestseller in 1996.

The movie, starring Angela Bassett as Stella and Taye Diggs as her lover, Winston, appears to have had even more of an effect.

"Jamaica couldn't have paid for the publicity we're getting," says photographer Ken Ramsay, referring to scenes that linger on white-sand beaches, turquoise and emerald waters, cloudless skies and exotic flowers.

Jamaica's Tourist Board has screened the film for U.S. travel agents and aired TV spots promoting the island as a lovers' getaway.

Board officials say it's too early to quantify any impact, so it's impossible to say if, or how much of, recent increases could be attributed to the movie.

The board's latest figures, for September, the month after the movie's release, show a 10% increase over the same month last year. There was a 22% jump to 20,544 visitors from the northeastern United States alone.