Wow! Such a good movie.

One of my all time favorites.

Absolutely brilliant

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Debra Winger is at her most mercurial portraying a mentally-challenged woman who becomes involved in a murder. This adaptation of Mary McGarry Morris' novel is difficult viewing--mainly because the protagonist can be such a handful--though director Stephen Gyllenhaal lends the material an intense, compelling flourish, and the results are ideal for audiences interested in something left of center. Gyllenhaal, who was creating quite a resume for himself in the mid-1990s before eventually turning to TV (our loss), bulldozes right through the screenplay's messy structure and barrage of hot-headed characters, and he's very sensitive when handling magnetic Winger, who does remarkable work. Incredible supporting cast includes Barbara Hershey, Gabriel Byrne, Chloe Webb, David Strathairn, Jan Hooks and Laurie Metcalf. **1/2 from ****

There isn't much new in the idea. Two women, both hungry, living alone. A handyman comes in. He does both of them. One, in the course of an unrelated subplot, knifes a man to death and is sent to jail, carrying the handyman's baby. After a year or so, she gets out and is reunited with the handyman, her baby, and the other woman -- happily, it seems. Yet the plot is more original than you might expect. What you might expect is a pretty but excessively shy woman who finds love at the end with the humble Mellors, I mean the humble Byrne. But it's not that. It's not "David and Lisa" either. It's better than that.What I kind of like about it is mostly the acting. Barbara Hershey is glamorized and stunning. And Debra Winger gives her character a real life of her own. Man, is she homely. She wears thick glasses, has her hair tied back like the head of a mop, wears no makeup, and pinches her lips together and twitches from time to time. It's the kind of performance -- playing an inadequate socially challenged semi-loony -- that wins Academy Awards. At the same time it's more difficult to play a person with a touch of simple schizophrenia than it is to play an autistic or someone who has cerebral palsy or is considerably retarded. Winger's unadorned illness is characterized mainly by an inability to groom herself attractively and a social clumsiness that is characteristic of schizophrenia. What she has, and what most schizophrenics don't, is an emotional depth, a resonance with others. She may be constantly frazzled but she's capable of loving deeply.And I appreciated Gabriel Byrne's character and performance too. A by-the-numbers route here would have brought in a ruggedly handsome, perfectly gorgeous, virile, flawless guy, brimming with danger and testosterone. Instead the movie gives us Gabe Byrne. Yes, he's a kind of ne'er do well and a rogue but he's not Vigo Mortenson or Brad Pitt. His face looks as if it's been molded out of candle wax that has begun to melt. He gets drunk just about every night and can't hold a job. He admits he's a lying thief. And -- for this I was particularly grateful -- he never ONCE takes off his shirt and shows us his sweaty chest while splitting logs or, er, plowing a field.One night, drunk, he stumbles into Winger's little bungalow. He's filled with remorse, poses her as a priest in a confessional, asks her, "Are you Catholic? Ah, never mind, you don't know what the **** I'm talking about anyway." Then he begs this rudely shaped lump of clay for absolution and weeps in her lap before kissing her. (Her first time, we don't doubt.) She's alternately charmed and horrified.The language and the sex are fairly explicit. The sex includes masturbation, defloration, and -- well, normal intercourse, I guess, if the definition is extended to include coupling on a floor full of broken crockery with one of the partners so deliriously drunk that she believes the man is someone else.It's nicely directed too. No razzle-dazzle. No, "Hey, Ma, look at me! I got a camera!" Just one or two shots involving a pair of eyeglasses draw attention to themselves. The rest is very efficiently done. When Strathairn dies, he does so in a most unexpected way, stabbed multiple times, and whining about, "Hey, what did you do to me." There's blood all over the place, as there should be when someone is bleeding to death, but not a single shot of a knife piercing flesh. And his killer reassuring him as he expires, "It's okay. It's okay." She can't dial 911 because she can't find her glasses.The end is a little disturbing if you bother to think about it. After all, Debra Winger has stabbed a guy to death over some squabble at her workplace. "A Dangerous Woman" is right. And it appears that Byrne is finally going to make an honest woman out of her. I hope she never gets mad at HIM.The photography is very nicely done. I don't know where it was shot but it looks a bit like the Coachella Valley in California. Nice ranch house. Nice lines of fruit-bearing trees in the orchards. Mountains all around. Fan palms. The Garden of Eden with humans in it.

Never saw the film when it was released, but it was a surprise when it was shown on cable recently. Stephen Gyllenhaal directs with great style. He is helped by the adaptation Naomi Foner crafted out of the Mary McGarry Morris' novel. This is a story about the cruelty inflicted to an innocent woman who is mentally retarded.The film is set in California. Martha, the troubled soul at the center of the story has mental problems. She is an honest woman who tells it like it is, but because of her condition, people will always try to take advantage of her. Martha probably doesn't know what's happening with her own sexuality, yet we witness a night when she is engaging in satisfying herself in the only way she knows how."A Dangerous Woman" is an engrossing tale that involve us from the beginning. Martha is a complex character that in Debra Winger's interpretation shows she is a woman that has been dealt a bad hand by life. Yet, Martha is able to function by herself without any supervision. This is a confused woman that will win the viewer's heart.Debra Winger doesn't appear often in movies these days. It's our loss! Ms. Winger projects such intelligence as she approaches her role of Martha that suddenly, the actress and the part she is playing become one. The rest of the cast is excellent. Barbara Hershey is always a welcome addition to any film. Gabriel Byrne is credible as the handy man. David Strathairn plays a pivotal role that brings the film to an unexpected conclusion. Laurie Metcalf is only seen in a couple of scenes. Mr. Gyllenhaal and Ms. Foner should team up more often because they work well together as proved by this film and the previous ones.

It was not as good as the book but at least the ending was more clear in the movie than in the book. Barbra Hershey is a great actress! She did a great job at the role she played, so did Martha (Debra). Although, in the book they described her as a girl with normal intelligence with a mental illness, the movie shows her as mentally challenged. So when I saw the movie, Martha was totally different than how I pictured her when I read the book. The story line was sad but interesting. Its interesting and touching to see how a girl could not lye even to save herself. What they did not mention in the story, which bugged me,was the fact that, Gesto was hurting Martha, which I thought could have made it self-defense. I felt like, if she could tell the truth, why couldn't she admit her was hurting her? Well I guess the whole idea was to create a devastating situation, which they did. Also, I wanted to add, contrary to the book, Martha and Frances seemed to have a strong bong; there was love between the two of them. In the book, Frances and Martha seemed to be together more by obligation. Additionally, I was kind of hoping to see the strong wiled character of Martha in the book rather than the vulnerable innocent girl in the movie. The appearance of the girl was not what I expected either; I pictured a tall thin girl, not a petete thin girl, with a much softer look than I pictured in the book. Well, I guess they have to change some things.