Sometimes a person comes into our lives who is so exceptional that once we encounter them, we can never be the same.

These special people are different from the rest of us in ways we cannot always understand but will never forget. That is the case of Martha Horgan, the title character played by Debra Winger, of A Dangerous Woman.

A Dangerous Woman is part gentle love story, part disturbing drama. It's about loneliness and rejection, the fear of not fitting in and the fear of hearing the truth. It's about being different in a world that rewards sameness. But mostly, it's about Martha.

Martha is a delicate, childlike spirit captured in the body of an awkward woman who lives in the guest house of a ranch owned by her Aunt Frances (Barbara Hershey). Burdened by her responsibilities for Martha and caught in a dead-end love affair with a married politician, Frances attends to her niece with a fierce loyalty. When Frances hires Mackey (Gabriel Byrne), a handyman, to repair her porch which has been wrecked in a drunken episode with the politician's wife, Mackey finds himself caught between Frances and Martha, the catalyst for a series of events that lead to a frightening conclusion.

A Dangerous Woman is directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, and written for the screen by Naomi Foner, based on the novel by Mary McGarry Morris. Foner also produces and Kathleen Kennedy is the executive producer. The cast also features David Strathairn, Chloe Webb, John Terry, Jan Hooks and Laurie Metcalf.