Here, in a film so middlebrow it's unibrow, Jude Law establishes the parameters of his future personae: the fusion of narcissus, Peter Pan and the Dionysian dandy; the whiplash shifts in register, from fury to glee; a rare talent for pregnant immobility (c.f. "A.I." and Rilke's "Archaic Torso of Apollo"); arresting physical beauty; sly sexual ambiguity.

WILDE AT HEART
In "Bent," a fantasia on the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust, Jude Law is among the revelers at a transsexual performance art disco orgy. Above his head, Mick Jagger in drag croons from a trapeze. Across the room, Clive Owen is doing bumps of cocaine with a hot blond übermensch. Law is on-screen for less than three seconds. He wears an eye patch.

Butch Clint Eastwood casts him as the (one-eyed) serpent in his "Garden of Good and Evil" -- the hothead hustler who undoes paradise.

In the vaguely homoerotic "Gattaca," he represents genetic perfection: "IQ off the register, better than 20/20 in both eyes, and the heart of an ox." Unable to cope with the pressure of being flawless, he has thrown himself in front of a moving vehicle and landed bitterly in a wheelchair. The joke of the movie, an overdesigned cautionary sci-fi parable, is that Ethan Hawke is his genetic inferior, and must borrow Law's skin flakes, stray pubes and urine samples to sneak his way into a superselective astronaut program. Chilly Uma Thurman plays the nominal love interest, but the real intimacy is between Hawke and Law, bonding over the byproducts of superior male physique.

In "Existenz," his character becomes actively (hetero)sexual only after allowing a pseudo-anal "bioport" to be installed in his lower back. This allows for the insertion of a fleshy, nub-tipped umbilical cord, necessary for playing Existenz, an avant-garde virtual reality game (otherwise known as "cinema"). "I have this phobia about having my body penetrated -- surgically -- you know what I mean," he says. But, "Once you've ported," says costar Jennifer Jason Leigh, "there's no end to the games you can play." She sticks a finger in her mouth, covering it with saliva, and inserts it in his bioport for lubrication.

CHEEK
Like the baboon, Jude Law often presents his hindquarters during courtship. When John Cusack first spies him in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," he is hunched over his Camaro, ass offered up in tight jeans (the entire movie is thick with queer sizing up). In "Cold Mountain," Nicole Kidman discovers him up in the rafters of a church. As he climbs down to accept her glass of iced tea, he does so, naturally enough, ass first. Director Minghella sneaks in a distinct shot of her checking out his butt before averting her eyes.

The talented Mr. Ripley (Matt Damon, an audience surrogate) goes utterly agog at the sight of Dickie Greenleaf rising, supple and glistening, from the bathtub -- a vision of Aphrodite rising from the sea, Narcissus reflecting in the bathroom mirrors. (Their first meeting is a warm-up to this encounter: Dickie insouciant on the beach, baring a manly open armpit to pale, timorous Ripley.)

HEY JUDE
The pop-punk band Brand New has recorded a song called "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad." While ostensibly addressed to a girl (androgynously) named "Jess," the lyrics might well have been written by Belle and Sebastian. A man's voice sings:

So here's a present to let you know I still exist
I hope the next boy that you kiss has something terribly
contagious on his lips
...
Tell all the English boys you meet
about the American boy back in the states
The American boy you used to date
who would do anything you say
...
And all this empty space that you create
does nothing for my flawless sense of style

Still, Jude Law claims to have been named after a Beatles song:

"Hey Jude, don't be afraid. You were made to go out and get her. Na na na na na ..."

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