WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH: THE LOIS WILSON STORY

US, 2010, 100 minutes, Colour.
Winona Ryder, Barry Pepper.
Directed by John Kent Harrison.

When Love Is Not Enough is a quotation from Lois Wilson, talking to her husband Bill Wilson about her life with him and his alcoholism.

Lois Wilson was married to Bill Wilson for over thirty years and shared his struggles with alcohol (the film focuses on the alcohol rather than his real-life problems with womanising).

Bill Wilson was the founder of AA, a troubled character, even in the success he had with founding Alcoholics Anonymous. There had been a previous film, My Name is Bill W., starring James Woods as Bill Wilson with Jo Beth Williams as Lois and James Garner as Doctor Bob. It was a Hallmark film, a television biography of Bill Wilson, given the style of popular telemovies and, perhaps, the Reader’s Digest life stories. This film was the same, produced by CBS and Hallmark, but the focus this time is very much on Lois and seeing Bill Wilson through her eyes.

The film opens with an enthusiastic marriage as Bill Wilson goes off to World War One to fight. On his return, he is unsettled, but is a whiz at investigating companies, finding their difficulties, building them up, and gets a job on Wall Street and is very successful at advising friends and others on investments. However, with his increasing alcoholism and public behaviour, as well as the Wall Street crash, he finds that his life is in ruins. Despite all the difficulties, his wife stays with him and supports him, for better or worse. She gains the admiration of her parents, her father a doctor, her mother who dies during this period encouraging her and admiring her. However, because she has two miscarriages, the couple decide they would like to adopt – but the agency is warned against them because of Bill Wilson’s alcoholism. For many years there is a broken friendship between the two friends.

Finally, Bill Wilson has an experience, a kind of religious experience when he was fully down in his alcoholism. He gives up drinking, acknowledges that he is an alcoholic, finds that he has a power to talk with other alcoholics and enable them to give up drinking. This is especially true of a contact he has in Ohio with a friend, Doctor Bob. Together they work, especially with Bill back in Brooklyn, his house open for many alcoholics who discuss their plight – and, ultimately, he pens The Twelve Steps. In the meantime, they lose the house, rely on friends for accommodation as they move from place to place, finally being given a place to stay by a benefactor.

While Lois tells the story, we experience her suffering and the difficulties in her life, putting up with Bill and his public drinking as well as the violence at home. When he begins his recovery, she contacts some of the wives who drive their husbands to the meetings, this leads to talk, sharing experiences and, ultimately, to Al- Anon for the wives of alcoholics.

The film is told in a fairly straightforward fashion, a no-frills presentation for the wide television audience in the Hallmark style. Effective nonetheless though not a profound portrait and analysis of Bill or Lois Wilson. It was directed by John Kent Harrison who made a number of similar films, especially his film about John Paul II with Jon Voight and Cary Elwes as the pope, and The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler about the Polish woman who saved two thousand, five hundred children from the Nazis in Warsaw, starring Anna Paquin.

1. A biographical film? Of Lois and Bill Wilson? A re-creation of the period from 1918 to 1951? The story of the origins of Alcoholics Anonymous?

2. Audience knowledge of the characters, information about them, themselves as persons? Their experiences leading to AA and to Al-Anon?

3. Audiences’ attitudes to Alcoholics Anonymous, The Twelve Steps and its success, Al-Anon?

4. The creation of the period, World War One to the 1930s? Costumes, décors, cars? New York and Brooklyn? The apartments and streets, the bars (especially in the prohibition era)? Wall Street? The countryside, the roads, factories? An authentic atmosphere, the score?

5. The treatment of the biography, for a PG rating? Characters and experience, broad and descriptive rather than psychologically deep? Yet the psychological truth, medical, social, personal?

6. The focus on Lois, Bill through Lois’s eyes? Her voice-over, narrative and commentary, her experience, her motivation for her life?

7. Winona Ryder as Lois, over a period of thirty years or more? Her place in her family, close to her family, her friends? Her initial comment on the effects of drink not just on the alcoholic but on those connected with him and in the circles around him? Her reflecting on her arrogance in marrying, confident that she could cope and manage Bill Wilson?

8. Her seeing Bill as the ideal, going to war, his experience, the return, their wedding, her love for him for decades, in sickness and in health…?

9. The early years, her working in the mental institution, Bill and his accountancy, their house, giving up his job, suggesting that they go onto the road? The hints of alcoholism? Her friend, Frank getting him a job on Wall Street? The friend and the help for the job on Wall Street?

10. The increasing episodes of drunkenness, Frank and his wanting to fire Bill? Lois and her reactions, Bill and his friend Ebby? Their drinking together? Not getting any help, getting worse? The travel and his success? The years of success despite the drinks? Advising friends about investments, 1929, the stock market crash? Lois’s brother Rogers, losing money?

11. The years after the crash, the effect on Lois, her pregnancies, her hopes, the miscarriages? The second miscarriage, going to hospital, the collapse and her hysterectomy? Bill’s late arrival? Her blaming him over the years? The issue of adoption, the visit, the baby, their joy, her friend giving the information against her, the breaking of the friendship for years? The later apologies?

12. Bill getting worse, boorish, his behaviour towards Lois, denial, his excuses, the promises and the Bible, renewing them, writing them down, Lois reading them to him?

13. Lois and her desperation, leaving, going to Washington, Bill urging her to return? Her mother and father and their advice? Moving into the house? Her mother’s death and her encouragement of Lois? The father, remarrying? The brother and the aftermath of the Wall Street crash?

14. The 1930s, Bill and his failures, his final collapse? His God experience? Travelling, not phoning Lois, her desperation? His meeting Doctor Bob, giving up drink?

15. The phone call, urging Lois to come to Ohio, her coming, meeting Bob and his wife, their talk, the friendship with Bob’s wife, sharing the experiences?

16. The film showing the process of the group work, the meetings, Bill and his being able to talk to alcoholics? Moving from house to house for accommodation after losing their own, the meetings, the home in the country? The working out of the steps? The fact that that Lois reads out the twelve steps during the film? Bill and his writing the book?

17. Lois, going out to the wife in the car, inviting her in, the reaction of the men and their wondering? The women at the table, reflecting on the hardships of their lives? The formation of Al- Anon?

18. The scene in 1951, Bill and Lois together, success, reflecting on their experiences? The heritage of Bill and Lois Wilson for Alcoholics and their wives and the continued success of their methods, The Twelve Steps, the elaboration of the steps, the religious implications of the steps, the humanity?