Spoiler Alert: Avert the text between the asterisks to miss the spoiler.
Meg Ryan's character is a weak jerk, but she ends up triumphing in the end in a contrived, predictable ending where she gets everything she wants, including the ethnic housekeeper and kissy face with the housekeeper's newborn baby.
Poor Andy, the dependable hard-working husband who just takes an occasional drink, is sentenced to a lifetime of Al Anon meetings. Kill me now.
End Spoiler Alert
At any rate, we're writing far more about this movie than intended, which means it must have something going for it, but we suspect it's merely skillful manipulation. It gets the 80-proof juices going because it attacks something close to our heart: alcohol.
If alcoholism is a disease, then by all means treat it, but don't cynically exploit it to try and make masses of moviegoers succumb to guilt. There are many more interesting aspects of our relationship with alcohol that could have been explored in this movie — and are explored in the movies that have made our elite Barfly Flicks List.
Too much of When a Man Loves a Woman‘s dialogue was like a school filmstrip, with Meg or Andy communicating straight information as if they were reading from a couple of instructional pamphlets: one for suffering spouses of alcoholics and one for aspiring alcoholics. ("I drink a quart a day. It's vodka so you couldn't smell it.")
On the basis of cinematic self-loathing, the movie's application for our distilled and potent Barfly Flicks List is rejected. Only two have made the list so far, the seminal category-naming Barfly, and the delightful and earnest Indy outing, written and directed by Steve Buscemi, Trees Lounge.
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