On a related note: Lest anyone try to make the case that Kathy Bates' supporting-actress nomination for "About Schmidt" is in any way progressive -- in other words, recognition of a woman with a "non-Hollywood" body type -- let's take a minute to remind ourselves how she's made to look in that movie. I liked Bates in "About Schmidt" but hated the way the director, Alexander Payne, used her, and it's crucial to note the difference. Bates plays her character, an artsy, earth-motherish '60s leftover, as a good-natured stereotype.

But why on earth does Payne shoot her nude scene, in which she slips coquettishly into a hot tub with Jack Nicholson, to make her body look as unappealing as possible, all pendulous breasts and quivering-jelly thighs? This isn't a case of a director's striving to make a woman's body seem real to us; he's holding it up for our derision and ridicule. I'm thrilled that Bates has no compunction about taking her clothes off (the wholesome starlet routine is one of the most tiresome acts in Hollywood); but sometimes the "Hollywood magic" that makes a star look more luminous or more slender than she actually is, is nothing more than simple kindness. It's the least Bates deserves.

Everyone who loves actresses has his or her own list of favorite performances -- performances that feel inextricable from roles -- that went either wholly unrecognized or just not recognized enough. For 2002 mine would include Samantha Morton in "Morvern Callar"; Viola Davis in "Far From Heaven" (the purest subversion I've ever seen of the idea of the demeaning "black maid's" role); Fiona Shaw in Claire Peploe's "Triumph of Love"; Emily Watson in "Punch-Drunk Love"; Toni Collette in both "About a Boy" and "The Hours"; Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Secretary"; every actress in "Lovely & Amazing"; Judi Dench in "Die Another Day"; Michelle Williams in "Me Without You"; and Do Thi Hai Yen in "The Quiet American."

There's one more actress who belongs on that list, an actress who gave a performance that I've found myself defending over and over again. I feel protective of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' performance in "Femme Fatale" not only because I think it's marvelously, wickedly entertaining, but because I think there's something essentially misogynist about the way many critics and moviegoers have so sneeringly dismissed her.

Romijn-Stamos plays Lily/Laure (she goes by both names), a ruthless thief and hustler who uses every one of her God-given feminine resources to get exactly what she wants. At one point she impersonates a pouty, doe-eyed French girl (speaking perfect French, although it's clear her real background is plain old American alley cat) to snare a rich American diplomat; later she shows up as a mysterious Hitchcock blond (a sister in spirit and in wiles to "Basic Instinct's" Catherine Tramell) who struts through Paris in an armor softly forged from cream cashmere and Hermès silk -- the battle garb of l'amour, worn by a true warrior.

Romijn-Stamos has legs like lily stems. She used to be a model, which, in the realm of discussion about "serious" acting, is one strike against her; it's universally assumed that models simply aren't intelligent enough to act. (I think there are several actresses who disprove that theory, Anjelica Huston among them, but there's simply no changing some people's alleged minds on the matter.) I've heard some people say that Romijn-Stamos gives a decent performance, but only because director Brian De Palma told her exactly what to do.

Romijn-Stamos is a relative beginner at acting, and there's no doubt De Palma must have guided her. But it's not him we're looking at up there on the screen; it's not his body moving so supply and so unself-consciously in that deliciously outlandish striptease scene; it's not his voice, declaring in those intentionally flat-as-the-Great-Plains tones, tones that suddenly betray Lily/Laure's workaday roots (even though we never find out exactly what those roots are): "I'm a bad girl. Real bad."

There are people who have enjoyed "Femme Fatale" but who still claim that Romijn-Stamos couldn't possibly have been in on the joke of her character. But I don't see how an actress could give such an intentionally funny, sharp-edged performance and have it be an accident, or simply the result of the puppet-master's having pulled the right strings. All actors know that part of their job is to use their bodies. And yet there are plenty of actresses with beautiful bodies who have no sense of physicality, of how to play a role with their limbs as well as their minds. (In her first movie role, Romijn-Stamos pretty much had only her body to work with: As Mystique in "X-Men," she had no lines and played the entire movie in a costume that was little more than a coat of blue body paint.)

One of the most resonant images from "Femme Fatale" is that of Romijn-Stamos tangling with Antonio Banderas on a Parisian bridge, her hair a windblown tumble of blond curls, her eyes circled with eyeliner like an echo of Parisian soot. She's dressed in fetching black leather and lace, impeccably cut in the French way, but there's something about her defiant stance that makes her much more than just a tall, lovely girl who looks good in clothes. She's nervy and determined in the way she carries herself, as if she'd come to an understanding of her character within her very bones and muscles.

I don't know how Romijn-Stamos will be in other movies, working with other directors. But I consider her performance in "Femme Fatale" work well done, and I wouldn't hesitate to point to the role as a fascinating, beefy and, yes, challenging one. I will most certainly watch "Femme Fatale" again someday, and once again I'll relish its artful disreputability. But I'll never again go near "The Hours" if I can help it. I see "Femme Fatale" as a covertly feminist movie, one that embraces the femme fatale not just as an icon but as a disguise for the real human being underneath. Lily/Laure, a femme fatale (the most heavily typed in the movies!), feels more real and more vivid to me than the carefully wrought, "serious" characters in "The Hours."

That said, I realize that all good actresses like a challenge, and I can accept that the dull worthiness of the characters in "The Hours" must represent some sort of a gold standard to them. I've loved Nicole Kidman in many of her roles, most notably "Moulin Rouge." But if Kidman does take home the award this year, the last thing I'd wish for her are more roles like the one she plays in "The Hours." Instead, I hope that she and similarly gifted actresses will have the chance to get ahold of something more valuable than your typical ho-hum actorly prestige: I wish them more opportunities to wear bad-girl lace, without having anyone hold it against them. And may they wear it into their 60s if they want to.

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