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‘A Dangerous Woman’
By Rita Kempley
Washington Post Staff Writer
December 03, 1993
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Debra Winger, who hasn't tickled Oscar's fancy in a decade, pushes the edge of the envelope, please, as the tetched-in-the-head protagonist of "A Dangerous Woman." Her sultry good looks effectively disguised by wardrobe, she doesn't so much develop her character as supply her with goofy tics. Perhaps this is her homage to Ernest P. Worrell.Winger's Martha Horgan is a couple of IQ points shy of Ernest's grand total but she shares the lovable boob's penchant for saying exactly what he thinks. It's this witless passion for truth, the moviemakers observe, that makes her so unpopular. As love interest Gabriel Byrne puts it: "Sometimes we have to tell lies to get to the truth." In any case, Martha has never been schooled in the subtleties of human behavior, a failing that makes her a pariah in the close-knit California farming community she calls home. Martha lives with her Aunt Frances (Barbara Hershey), a widow whose affair with a married politician (John Terry) sets the film in motion. Actually, it's the drunken pol's wife (Laurie Metcalf) who starts things rolling when she plows her car into Frances' living room and confronts the adulterers. Hurling lamps and invective, she accuses them of philandering in a scene that couldn't be topped in ordinary movies. But there is nothing ordinary about this unintentionally comic melodrama, upon which director Stephen Gyllenhaal imposes neither aesthetics nor control. Focused chiefly on Martha, the screenplay (by Gyllenhaal's wife, Naomi Foner) introduces then forgets about the other characters. Maybe that's why Hershey and Byrne take the opportunity to chew scenery with the slobbering relentlessness of teething babies. Byrne, as the itinerant handyman Mackey who seduces both women, has an excuse for emoting with such gusto: He's a liquored-up Irishman with a love for sizzling poetry. Hershey has her own drunk scene, getting loaded before offering herself to Mackey atop a pile of broken dishes. And talk about handy: She comes away without a scratch. Meanwhile, Martha's friendship with a co-worker (Chloe Webb) at the dry cleaners is destroyed by the woman's mean-spirited boyfriend Getzo (David Strathairn). Getzo delights in hazing Martha -- who inevitably turns on her tormentor with a cheese knife (and so the "dangerous woman" part becomes clear!). In a matter of jabs, this paean to the innocence of the slow-witted becomes a TV movie drawn from the tabloids -- a genre that Gyllenhaal has explored on numerous occasions ("Leap of Faith," "Paris Trout"). "A Dangerous Woman" lacks both cohesion and moral perspective. What happens to Martha at the handyman's hand essentially amounts to rape. Aunt Frances even says so, then goes on to pooh-pooh the idea. It was love, Frances decides. "I was drunk," he says. I only wish I had been. "A Dangerous Woman" is rated R for nudity, sexual situations and violence.
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