A Dangerous Woman

Observe the way Debra Winger plays her character in "A Dangerous Woman," and you will learn something about the alchemy of acting. She doesn't look particularly different in this film - aside, of course, from the details of makeup or hair style that help women express their beauty. You can always see that it's Debra Winger. But she projects such a different essence in the film, so profoundly different, that you wonder how she's doing it.

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In "A Dangerous Woman," Debra Winger sinks deeply into the drab role of Martha Horgan, a sheltered innocent living in a small California town. Characters like Martha have a way of attracting the storyteller's interest at a very precise point in their lives. It is the moment just before the character's peaceful existence is ruptured by some seismic force, a force like sex or death or a symbolic coming of age. "A Dangerous Woman" is soap opera enough to churn up all three.

A Dangerous Woman Trailer 1993Director: Stephen GyllenhaalStarring: Barbara Hershey, Chloe Webb, David Strathairn, Debra Winger, Gabriel Byrne, Jan Hooks

34% Audience Score

Debra Winger's performance as a slow, mentally disturbed woman in A Dangerous Woman, raises the film far above its conventional, violence-ridden plot. Winger plays Martha, a quiet, lonely woman who has adjusted to a life without a man as she toils away at her small job at a dry cleaners in a small town. She lives in the guest cottage of the home of relative Frances (Barbara Hershey). Frances is a single woman who takes up with a variety of men as a cover for her loneliness and insecurity. When Anita (Laurie Metcalf) barrels her car into Francesâ?? porch (thinking, correctly, that her husband is inside Francesâ?? house), alcoholic handyman Mackey (Gabriel Byrne) appears on the scene and offers to fix Francesâ?? porch. As Mackey works on the porch, Mackey becomes involved with both Frances and Martha. Into this melodramatic brew is added Getso (David Strathairn), a petty crook who works with Martha at the dry cleaners. When the four principles interact with each other, the disturbing results include an unwanted pregnancy, a murder, and some unsparing violence. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

In "A Dangerous Woman," you know Debra Winger is a bomb about to go off. The title -- not to put too fine a point on it -- is a dead giveaway. And when Winger almost clubs a woman to death in the opening scene, you know bizarre things are in store.

A Dangerous Woman cast list, listed alphabetically with photos when available. This list of A Dangerous Woman actors includes any A Dangerous Woman actresses and all othe...

Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. With Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey, Gabriel Byrne, Laurie Metcalf. Martha Horgan, a naive woman with an intellectual impairment who lives with her aunt Frances in a small town, is known for always telling the truth. She works at a dry cleaner, where her compulsive truth-telling leads her to report to the boss that another employee has been stealing from the cash register. The thief, in turn, accuses Martha, and she loses her job. In the mean time, a mysterious ...

A Dangerous Woman (1993) is a film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. The screenplay was written by his wife Naomi Foner, loosely based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Mary McGarry Morris. The feature was co-produced by Amblin Entertainment and Gramercy Pictures. It stars Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey, Gabriel Byrne and Gyllenhaal. It included Gyllenhaal and Foner's two children, Jake and Maggie, who later developed acting careers.