Woman Wanted (1999)

Emma Riley, a young woman getting over a bad relationship, wants a change in her life. She decides to answer the ad for a housekeeper in New Haven. She will be working for professor Richard Goddard and his grown son, Wendell. Emma's arrival is like a ray of sunshine in this huge, but stuffy house, where the figure of the dead wife of the professor, looms large in the background.Richard takes a liking to Emma, who answers him in kindness. It's clear to see he has fallen in love with her. Wendell, on the other hand, is a young man fighting his own demons. When Emma tries to be friendly to him, he rejects her. When Richard, who is clearly in love with Emma, proposes, she is happy to accept. Wendell, who has married his girlfriend Monica in a whim, finds out he made a big mistake.Wendell, a sensitive man, writes poetry. He can't take any more rejections of his work. Emma intercedes to one of Richard's colleagues to see if he can help Wendell. When two of his poems are accepted, Wendell, who has also liked Emma, much more than he lets it be known, finally can't help but showing her how he feels about it.Richard confesses to Emma the reason for the estrangement between him and his son. It goes back when he had his wife committed to a sanatorium and her subsequent death. Since he couldn't deal with the situation, he fled to New York to the arms of his mistress, leaving behind a desolate Wendell. Emma, who can't take more of the tension in the Goddard's home, decides to leave. She prays that she becomes pregnant. We finally see Emma at her own house with a small child and the last frame in the film shows Wendell and Richard and this baby between them.Kiefer Sutherland shows he has what it takes for being a good director. He is one of the best actors around, so directing could be something he could do well, as he shows here. Evidently, this production must have had problems as it shows another man as the director, but it must have been the studio's doing to try to change Mr. Sutherland's work to whatever they thought it should have been.The principal flaw in the movie is the screen treatment. Not having read Joanna McClelland Glass' novel, one can't make an assumption of where it went wrong. Perhaps inexperience played a part in the end product. The film has the feeling of a Gothic novel set in the last century, and not in the present time.The three principals do excellent work. Holly Hunter makes Emma appear more luminous than in the written page. She is an actress that can't do a false movement. Michael Moriarty had a great career in the theater and films before concentrating on television. He makes an excellent character study of this cold man who suddenly sees salvation when he falls in love with the house keeper. Kiefer Sutherland's role is not fully developed. His character is the more uneven of the three leads, but he has great moments in which he shows what he really can do.

I am the hugest Kiefer Sutherland fan, so when I was flipping through the channels and saw this movie, I immediately had to watch it. So I did. I wasn't entirely sure what would come out of the movie, but I was surprised to find myself somewhat pleased. Sutherland did an excellent job in acting and directing this film. Moriarty was a very unique character, and Hunter brought a sort of wholesomeness to the movie. However, I do agree that the ending is a little mind boggling. I know that Hunter's character went to church and prayed for a child, but I didn't believe it would happen. As the previous reviewer said, no one really knows who the father of the child is and that is creepy. But when you see the end, you notice that there is a picture of both men kissing the top of the child's head, so whatever the answer is to the question of the child's father, it may not seem relevant. What is relevant is that this poignant story of father and son finally coming together, despite many obstacles is truly a story to behold.

Shirley Douglas, the actress playing "Peg" is actor/director Keifer Sutherland's mother! I discovered this doing a cross check. Douglas played on "The Hat Squad" a series that didn't last a whole season. But when viewing a bio on her it revealed that she was Keifer's mother so I checked to see if there were any matches and to this movie I came!

Convincing portrayal of a dysfunctional relationship between father and son. Kiefer Sutherland plays the son Wendell Goddard who harbors a grudge against his father Richard Goddard played by Michael Moriarty for committing his mother to a mental institution before she died with an excellent performance by Holly Hunter as Emma, the housemaid who is hired to maintain the Goddard home. I personally love Kiefer's directorial way of capturing the sensuality in the characters and the environment around them in this captivating movie.