One Who Wakes | John Mark Stroud

When a Man Loves a Women – Waking Up to the Movies

This week’s feature for Waking Up to the Movies is: When a Man Loves A Woman, Friday Nov. 30, 6:30pm

Ego is the greatest addiction of all. We explore some of the ways the ego manifests as Ego Wars in relationship.

Plot: Michael and Alice Green (Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan) appear to be the perfect yuppie couple. They live in a cozy San Francisco home and have two lovely young daughters. They’re passionate about their jobs (he’s an airline pilot, she’s a junior-high guidance counselor). And after five years of marriage, they still look at each other with the sexy adoration of high school sweethearts. But Alice has a dirty secret: She drinks from the moment she gets up. There’s an inherent drama in the spectacle of human degradation, so it’s riveting to see Alice sneak downstairs to swig from the bottle she has hidden in the towel drawer. When her addiction is discovered, she goes into detox, and the movie becomes the story of how her agonizing recovery tears apart a family that was never what it seemed in the first place.