A Dangerous Woman is a 1993 film from Amblin Entertainment

Amblin Entertainment

Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981. Amblin is only a production company, and has never distributed its own movies, nor has it fully financed its...

 and Gramercy Pictures

Gramercy Pictures

Gramercy Pictures was a film distributor launched in 1992, a joint venture of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Gramercy, a so-called "mini-major," was the distributor of PolyGram movies in the United States and Canada...

 directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal

Stephen Gyllenhaal

-Personal life:Gyllenhaal was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Virginia Lowrie and Hugh Anders Gyllenhaal. The Gyllenhaal family is a descendant of the cavalry officer Nils Gunnesson Haal, who was ennobled in 1652 when Queen Christina of Sweden conferred upon him the crest and family name,...

 and written for the screen by his then wife Naomi Foner. The film stars Laurie Metcalf

Laurie Metcalf

Lauren Elizabeth "Laurie" Metcalf is an American actress. She is widely known for her performance as Jackie Harris on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, Mary Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, the voice of Mrs. Davis in the Toy Story film series and as Debbie Salt in Scream 2...

, Debra Winger

Debra Winger

Mary Debra Winger is an American actress. Three-times an Oscar nominee, she received awards for acting in Terms of Endearment, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1983, and in A Dangerous Woman, for which she won the Tokyo International Film Festival...

, Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...

 and Gyllenhaal and Foner's two children, Jake

Jake Gyllenhaal

Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...

 and Maggie Gyllenhaal

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Margaret Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal born November 16, 1977) is an American actress. She is the daughter of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She made her screen debut when she began to appear in her father's films...

, both of whom would later go into acting.

Debra Winger was nominated for a Golden Globe Award

Golden Globe Award

The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

 for her performance and also won Best Actress at the Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...

.

The movie has never been released on Region 1 DVD and as of January 2, 2010, Universal has not yet announced any plans to release the film onto DVD. The film was once released on video in the United Kingdom by First Independent Films

First Independent Films

First Independent Films was a British film distributor and home video company that replaced Vestron Video UK and were first opened in 1991.Although a small film company, the company distributed a wide selection of genres, but they mainly served as a distributor for New Line Cinema and Turner...

.

Plot

Martha (Winger

Debra Winger

Mary Debra Winger is an American actress. Three-times an Oscar nominee, she received awards for acting in Terms of Endearment, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1983, and in A Dangerous Woman, for which she won the Tokyo International Film Festival...

) struggles to have a normal life in spite of being mentally challenged. On a paying job, she gets fired for a string of accusations about something she did not do. Later, she returns to her aunt's (Hershey

Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...

) home and starts to be attracted to the local handyman (Byrne

Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...

).

Cast

Actor	Role
Laurie Metcalf Laurie Metcalf Lauren Elizabeth "Laurie" Metcalf is an American actress. She is widely known for her performance as Jackie Harris on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, Mary Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, the voice of Mrs. Davis in the Toy Story film series and as Debbie Salt in Scream 2...	Anita Bell
Debra Winger Debra Winger Mary Debra Winger is an American actress. Three-times an Oscar nominee, she received awards for acting in Terms of Endearment, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1983, and in A Dangerous Woman, for which she won the Tokyo International Film Festival...	Martha Horgan
Barbara Hershey Barbara Hershey Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...	Frances Beechum
John Terry John Terry (actor) John Terry is an American film, television, and stage actor.-Early life:Terry was born in Florida, where he attended Vero Beach High School. He was also educated at the prestigious Loomis Chaffee prep school in Windsor, Connecticut, and began a career building original custom log homes in North...	Steve Bell
Maggie Gyllenhaal Maggie Gyllenhaal Margaret Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal born November 16, 1977) is an American actress. She is the daughter of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She made her screen debut when she began to appear in her father's films...	Patsy Bell
Jake Gyllenhaal Jake Gyllenhaal Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...	Edward (as Jacob Gyllenhaal)
Gabriel Byrne Gabriel Byrne Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...	Mackey
Chloe Webb Chloe Webb Chloe Webb is an American actress.Webb was born in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York. Her New York theater debut was in the original cast of the long-running musical satire Forbidden Broadway...	Birdie
David Strathairn David Strathairn David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...	Getso

Critical reception

Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin

Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...

 of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

had praise for the film, especially Winger's acting and Gyllenhaal's direction but found the film to be more akin to melodrama than true drama:

External links

• Original New York Times Review