Plot
The movie chronicles one woman's (Meg Ryan) alcoholism and her husband's (Andy Garcia) efforts to help her.
Meg Ryan plays Alice Green, a school counselor who has a serious drinking problem and is married to Michael (Andy Garcia), an airline pilot. Though she's lighthearted and loving, Alice is often reckless and, when drunk, even neglects her children, nine-year-old daughter Jess (Tina Majorino) from a previous marriage, and four-year-old daughter Casey (Mae Whitman), whose father is Michael. After an accident, Alice realizes that she has "hit bottom" and goes into a clinic for rehab. When she returns home, she has kicked her addiction and has become independent and strong, and her perfectionist, controlling husband has trouble adjusting. Michael is used to his wife being weak and helpless, and they end up seeing a marriage counselor to recover from Michael's "co-dependency" on Alice's role as an alcoholic. Then Alice gets the help she needs, but realizes she can't be with Michael. However, even through all the trials and tribulations Michael gets back together with Alice after deciding to move to Denver. He returns on the day she gives a speech at an AA function. Her speech is about how everyone deserves a second chance. He kisses her for a long time as the credits roll.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)