![]() I’ll keep you posted from the other side. But hey, nothing worthwhile is ever easy – or so they say. He needs to listen to his wife and she needs to communicate with him and not leap to confrontation. It illustrates the struggles of a seemingly perfect couple (Ryan and Andy Garcia. He is a good guy, and he loves her, but married life needs more than just these two things. Meg Ryan in Top Gun Image via Paramount Pictures. I had fallen into the same trap as others before me, allowing a dashingly handsome man charm me into thinking he can do no wrong. Why would she want to give any of that up? Watching it again as a woman about to embark on my own married life, I feel ashamed that I dismissed her need for autonomy and agency. Can’t she see how ardently this man loves? He is a good father, a kind man, not to mention they share such delicious sexiness together. Initially I couldn’t understand her anger or her instinct to isolate herself from him. She doesn’t need or want him to fix anything, but that’s who he is in the relationship – he fixes and mends. When she says she had a shitty day, instinctively he asks what he can do to help make it better, and this in turn sets her off. Michael doesn’t know where he fits in with this new dynamic. The people in the rehabilitation programme seek her out for advice and help with their problems, and she returns to being the mom she needs to be for her two girls. As she takes greater control of her life, she’s not quite the mess she was. Ironically, it is not the alcoholism that gets in the way of their relationship, rather, it is her recovery. They ignore the signs until it becomes clear they can no longer do so, the pivotal moment being Ryan’s crash through the shower glass panels after she mixes aspirin with alcohol. This is the status quo both of them are used to. He has spent most of their lives together patching things up for her and enabling her behaviour. This might be the end of us.”įor Michael and Cathy, it’s dealing with Cathy’s alcoholism. Because there’s always going to be something isn’t it, an obstacle to overcome, a moment where you think, “This is it. ![]() I didn’t think they could survive the ever present inevitable conflicts. At times I found myself wondering why they didn’t just walk away. Or maybe I had seen too much of it in my own parent’s relationship. ![]() Perhaps my 10 year old self wasn’t ready to come to terms with the reality of wedded life. It is disconcerting to watch it again all these years later and not recall any of the bleak moments. This movie is definitely not all sunshine and roses. Somehow, I had overlooked the screaming and the fighting, as well as the alcoholism. “This is love,” I thought to myself as they clung to each other in the swimming pool, spinning around with amazing buoyancy. As a young impressionable child, I was so in awe at Ryan and Garcia’s sparkling good looks. I mean Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia in a movie together deserves to be watched in some capacity. My parents were channel surfing and voilà. I remember watching When A Man Loves A Woman when I was about 10 years old.
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