As influenced as any ordinary woman

A Woman Under the Influence is a masterpiece of John Cassavetes and presents a woman who, so influenced by the people around her, can be a faithful portrait of most women we know. She doesn’t seem half-crazy because she’s influenced, but the symptoms are often the only way out to a person who wants to be whatever her husband wants her to be.

So is Mabel Longhetti (Gena Rowlands), who sends the three children to their mother’s house to spend a romantic night with her husband Nick (Peter Falk), a construction team leader. The evening doesn’t happen because they are forced to work overtime at night, but he "compensates" his wife, taking the whole team home at seven in the morning to have Mabel prepare spaghetti for them.

Although, privately, Nick and Mabel are a passionate couple, in public, the thing doesn’t work, especially for her, who, while trying to please everyone, udergoes some manic episodes. Nick sees these symptoms with censorship, and he scolds her, not for what she could do, but for what her friends might think of her.

It's no different with her children: she loves them so much and in such a way that she behaves as if she were also a child. She waits for the children to return from school and always holds parties to do whatever they want. This shocks the neighbor who considers "strange" the way of Mabel.

Under pressure from everyone, Nick decides to commit his wife to a mental institution. In his absence, he takes care of the children: on a day off, he takes the children out of school to practically forces them to go to the beach with him. On the way back, in the back of a truck, he gives them some beer, and they sleep.

When Mabel is discharged, Nick thinks it is a good idea to invite a few dozen friends to welcome her but ends up expelling those who are not family, making dinner with a dozen family members, resulting in more tension. In the end, people leave, including us, movie viewers. However, doubt and anguish remain: what is this normalcy that is sought?