In Sickness and in Health

Mickey (Marg Helgenberger) is a Greenville, Texas coffee shop waitress who is hired to help Anita Mattison (Lesley Ann Warren) who is wheelchair bound from chronic progressive multiple sclerosis. Mickey has an affair with Anita's husband bootmaker Jarrett (Tom Skerritt), and when Anita requires full time hospitalisation, she asks Mickey and Jarrett to live together.

Helgenberger gets a free spirit colourful wardrobe against Anita's plain colours, she wears a long black wig at a market, and at one point has an androgynous look with her red hair worn under a cap accompanied by jeans and braces. Her scenes with Skerritt help her to underplay, she is touching when embarasssed by her loneliness, apologising to Anita, and makes odd noises when she cries at Anita's final suggestion.

The teleplay by Alan Hines and Joyce Eliason has Anita dream of herself fully mobile, whether having sex with Jarrett or playing baseball, which she refuses to call nightmares. However the dialogue is less than inspired, with howlers like `I'm burning up inside for you', `I felt guilty before I was even born', and `I know you love me but the games changed'.

Director Jeff Bleckner shows restraint with the sex scenes between Mickey and Jarrett, and also helps Warren to make a strong impression.