Movie Review : ‘Woman’: Days of Wine and Turmoil

What does happen when a man loves a woman? Is it really necessary, as the Percy Sledge song mournfully insisted, to spend your last dime and sleep out in the rain? Or is a middle ground possible, one with perhaps a bit less suffering and a bit more dry land? Hollywood wants to know.

With Sledge on the soundtrack and Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia in starring roles as a couple as much in trouble as they are in love, “When a Man Loves a Woman,” directed by Luis Mandoki from a script by Ronald Bass and Al Franken, demonstrates why emotional turmoil is always a tricky subject for studio films to deal with effectively.

For though everyone yearns for the impact only the realistic treatment of problems delivers, there is inevitably a timid reluctance to renounce the slickness of Hollywood that serves as a convenient safety net. And seriousness of purpose does not mix well with excessive contrivance, not well at all.

All of this is more unfortunate than usual with “When a Man Loves a Woman,” because Garcia and especially Ryan have worked extremely hard on their performances, with excellent results. But the honesty of their work only serves to point up the surrounding artificiality, which displays their accomplishments in a shallow light.

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Pleasantly settled in San Francisco, Michael and Alice Green are introduced joking around at the Buena Vista, a celebrated local cafe. He is a dark and killer-handsome pilot, she a lively mother of two young girls (only one of whom is Michael’s) who works at a local school. The fun all four have together, complete with cloying remarks like “God, woman, just look at her” from one of those precocious tykes to the other about their mom, is treacly enough to make one yearn for the trouble to come.

But though it may set your teeth on edge, this fantasy setup is simply the opening thrust of a classic Hollywood one-two situation. The idea is to first envy the Greens their seemingly ideal life and their glamorous external trappings, only to pity them and feel superior later on when it turns out that they’ve a worse set of crises than most people in the audience. Which they do.

It doesn’t take too long for the first sign of trouble to appear. One sad look from older daughter Jess (Tina Majorino) at her mother as she lies in bed hung over from an anniversary celebration is the key: Alice turns out to be a Problem Drinker with a quart of vodka a day habit and a genius for denial.

While a difficulty like that might be enough for most movies, “When a Man Loves a Woman” isn’t about to take any chances. Among the many other things that go wrong in the Greens’ lives is a threat to his job, a major child-care blowup, painful conflicts about Jess’ absent father and overbearing grandmother, even child abuse and several near-death experiences. It gets so that when anyone sets foot in the street you fear at the very least they’ll be struck by a passing bus.

And that doesn’t even count the way the situations are milked on screen, often by having 9-year-old Majorino, a charming actress, pull some of the longest faces ever recorded as she responds to loaded “What’s an alcoholic?”-type questions from her perky younger sister.

This consistent artificiality is not at all in keeping with the strength of the performances, especially Ryan’s. Always an audience favorite, the actress uses that sympathy to her advantage here, strongly and graphically portraying a woman who not only acts badly in the grip of alcoholism but continues to be mired in pain and confusion both in treatment and afterward.

And though Garcia has to spend most of the movie saying supportive things like “You’re not alone, honey, never,” he, too, has his impressive moments, when this habit of insisting everything will be OK is called into question. When the movie allows itself to focus on Alice and Michael dealing one-on-one with these core difficulties, it is at its most persuasive.

Overall, however, the Greens’ predicament doesn’t move you as much as the quality of the acting makes you think it would. As crisis mounts on crisis, the wires of manipulation become too visible and you start to feel uncomfortably like an emotional dartboard.

It is a measure of “When a Man Loves a Woman’s” lack of restraint that when Michael and Alice take a vacation in Mexico, prominently visible on her beach blanket is a copy of Amy Tan’s “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” which just happens to be executive producer and co-screenwriter Bass’ next project. Filmmakers who wouldn’t hesitate at the thought of such a shameless plug can’t be trusted to deal with the issues this film raises with the straightforwardness they deserve.

* MPAA rating: R for language. Times guidelines: It includes several scenes of violence within the family and alcohol abuse.

‘When a Man Loves a Woman’

Meg Ryan: Alice Green

Andy Garcia: Michael Green

Tina Majorino: Jess Green

Mae Whitman: Casey Green

Lauren Tom: Amy

Released by Touchstone Pictures. Director Luis Mandoki. Producers Jordan Kerner, Jon Avnet. Executive producers Simon Maslow, Ronald Bass, Al Franken. Screenplay Ronald Bass & Al Franken. Cinematographer Lajos Koltai. Editor Garth Craven. Costumes Linda Bass. Music Zbigniew Preisner. Production design Stuart Wurtzel. Art director. Set decorators. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

* In limited release at the AMC Century 14, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City Shopping Center . (310) 553-8900.