This made-for-television film from 1999 is a domestic drama that focuses on the father-son relationship in a dysfunctional family. The father, a distinguished physics professor, runs an add for a live-in cook and cleaner. But the job description also includes healing the wounds between the father and son.Michael Moriarty, Kiefer Sutherland, and Holly Hunter are the three performers asked to tackle this challenging project. It turns out that both the father and son fall in love with the housekeeper. As the drama unfolds, there could be almost any possible outcome to this explosive situation. American playwright Eugene O'Neill wrote a brilliant play on the same subject entitled "Desire Under the Elms." "Woman Wanted" is uneven and never reaches the level of intensity of O'Neill's play. The credibility is often strained, and there is even a lapse into comedy when the young man gets married and brings his bride home, only to ask his father to arrange an annulment! But the final thirty minutes of the film are compelling. Sutherland's character evolves nicely, as does Hunter's all-too-human role of the housekeeper. There was good feeling in the performances, and although there were apparent disagreements about directorial choices, the film was shot effectively with smooth transitions and effective scoring.This may not be a great film, but it is nonetheless a thoughtful one and well above average for made-for-television films.

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.

This remarkably nuanced film directed by Kiefer Sutherland succeeds in many places. Handsomely and sensitively shot, it suggests many small films by more acclaimed directors, and is far more confident than any impression of Sutherland's work to date would make it reasonable to expect.While working at a NYC-based talent agency, I had the pleasure of assisting the agent to Carrie Preston, who shines like a jewel in this movie. When the role was offered to Carrie, the film was already in production in Canada, and my boss was out of town, so I had to frenziedly get the script to Preston, work out the details of Carrie's deal with the agent covering in LA, and get her on a plane in the space of a few days. I spent the better part of one Saturday copying the script. I took it home and read it, wondering what the hell could be worth all of the inconvenience...seeing the finished piece, nearly three years after it was filmed makes it all worthwhile...Preston's utterly spontaneous, natural, courageously unvain performance is a triumph for an actress who works steadily in the NY theater and gets far too few film roles. As Sutherland's girlfriend, she conveys a litany of emotion in a single glance, and nails her role as a young, haplessly confused and conflicted woman cold.Sutherland triumphs in two ways; by sparing nothing in his unsympathetic portrayal of the sullen, withdrawn, unbearably moody Wendell Goddard while keeping the melodrama firmly in check. His directorial restraint and maturity keep his character's presence in the film to a minimum, and the film and his character are both better served by it. Michael Moriarty delivers a lovely performance as Richard Goddard, the buttoned-up, widowed patriarch of a dysfunctional New England family, loving his son while having absolutely no idea who he is or what to do with him. Emma Riley arrives, played flawlessly by Holly Hunter, as the "woman" desired in the title, to take charge of the large old house inhabited by the two men who barely know one another. Predictably, her charm and honesty pierce the veil of WASP coolness, and she brings warmth and intimacy back to the lives of the two closed men. The charm and good intentions of this film are hard to deny. Love for the project shines like sunlight through every crack in the tightly written script, from the book of the same name. Earnest work from the four principals is satisfying, yet overall, the film feels slightly glib and trite once you are away from it for a few hours. I was enthralled while watching it, really relishing the chance to view some stellar work by some very good actors, and yet, something about it is predictable and slightly disappointing once some of the spell it wove about me wore off. Overall, I think this is well worth finding on cable or in your video store. Richly written characters make some of the overly metaphoric shots worth enduring, and the dead-on performances are a rare pleasure indeed. A flawed tale of emotional development and the importance of love and communication. Very nice work.