"Face of a Stranger," CBS' Sunday night movie, starring Tyne Daly and Gena Rowlands, is the kind of intimate, beautifully detailed drama that TV audiences deserve.
It's about two women. Tyne Daly plays Dollie, a homeless woman, and Gena Rowlands is Pat, the woman who befriends her."It's a small, little tale, which TV is good at, about two human beings who are in some way kindred,," said Daly. "It helps Dollie to become a little saner, to regain a little of her sanity.
"And Dollie helps Pat to become a little madder, because she needs to be angry and she needs to be a little crazy in order to continue her life."
The screenplay is by Marsha Norman, who won this year's Tony Award for her book to the musical "The Secret Garden." It is based on a non-fiction story in New York magazine by Mary Stuart.
It's set in Seattle, where Pat and her husband live in an upscale apartment and Dollie dwells in the clean, damp street nearby.
"They kind of adopt each other," Daly said.
Yet when Pat becomes a widow of reduced circumstances, she learns that she is much more like her homeless acquaintance than she has realized.
It's a tour de force for both actresses.
Rowlands' Pat is a perfect emblem of the upper-middle class. She is emotionally strait-laced, proper and perfect. It's a tribute to Rowlands' skill that she is able to convey the isolation of her character.
Dollie is more than slightly crazed. She sings fragments of nursery rhymes and her voice is a flattened, anguished trumpet.
It makes for a neat symmetry of their characters. As their relationship deepens, Pat is compelled to learn the circumstances that put Dollie on the street. It's a mystery with a tragic answer.
"Dollie's tragedy is the worst tragedy at all," Ms. Daly said, "and after that it doesn't get better. The institutions are not gentle, they can't be. They've got too many folks to take care of. They can't be gentle. They have to be strict."
That's what Pat learns when she tries to get Dollie into a shelter. It's not easy, and prickly personalities like Dollie don't lend themselves to institutions.
Daly based her character on the street people she encountered while walking to work - her Tony Award-winning turn as Mama Rose in "Gypsy."
"On the way are all kinds of people," she said. "Some of them live on the steps of the church in bundles of rags. Some of them jump out at you and yell `Aaaagh!' And some of them are talking to themselves."
There's nothing sappy-sweet or sentimental about the story or the women involved in it. Director Claudia Weil keeps things moving briskly, letting the characters grow and filling in details with a subtle touch.
There are moments of gentle comedy and high drama on the way to the movie's conclusion. It is simple, powerful and truthful.