When Love Is Not Enough

Several lines in When Love is Not Enough pay lip service to feminism or to the idea of women's independence (Lois' mother tells her, “You might find your own life”; a fellow Al-Anon wife says, “I think our husbands are doing the best they can for themselves, and so should we”). But if the movie means to communicate that the partners of alcoholics—maybe particularly the female partners of alcoholics (AA and Al-Anon became more gender-inclusive over time, though that process is not portrayed in this movie)—live so much at the mercy of their loved ones' addictions that they can't have their own lives, it does a better job than it means to.