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Special Features
- "The Making of My Name is Bill W." featurette with cast and crew interviews and behind-the-scenes footage
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Customer Reviews
It really doesn't matter. This movie, regrettably is available only on VHS, will give you insight, understanding, and hope. Hope, that most fragile of words, is the basis of this incredible made-for-TV motion picture.
Bill Wilson comes home from World War I a hero. He then conquers Wall Street. He marries the love of his life, Lois. He then discovers both a new god, a new lover, a new idol; the bottle. This unflinching film looks at the descent of of alcoholic into hell, and his journey back, guided, not by the spirit of Virgil, but by another alcoholic, Doctor Bob. Together, they find a "cure" for an "incurable" disease. The disease of alcoholism.
Neither could cure themselves, but together, they could find the way out of hell into if not paradise, at least life; life on life's terms.
This film has been called the AA "Roots." I won't take up that guantlet. This film stands alone. The performances by James Woods, JoBeth Williams and James Garner stand on their own merits. It tells the story of one man's descent into the hell of addiction < and YES, alcoholism is an addiction >, and his return to the land of the living.
Woods plays Bill W. with remarkable restraint, not denigrating into the hystrionics of Jack Lemmon in "The Lost Weekend"; as brilliant and well-meaning as that film is. Nor does this movie fall into high camp, as did "Reefer Madness" in the late Thirties.
Instead, in "My Name Is Bill W.", we see a man driven to the depths of despair. A man beaten is beaten into the dust. To quote Cecil B. DeMille, "the dust from which prophets and holy men are formed. . ."
Yet, this film is not preachy. It tells a story. A true story, all the more frightening, because it is true.
Watch this movie. Listen to its message of hope, of truth, of honesty, openness, and willingness. Hear the story of the damned, who somehow, someway, found salvation.
You will be moved. I promise you.
a) a James Woods fan
b) a "Friend of Bill W"
I bought it for both reasons. Read more
Kathleen Smart
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