What Makes Her The Best

By RICHARD CORLISS

No one applies for the job of "movie star." There are no graduate courses in the subject. The title is a gift from a public that has decided, as if ignited by mass lust, that you are the hottie du jour. That's the easy part. The hard part is maintaining an effortless allure through the rumbles of inane projects and the hiccups of popular taste.

Julia Roberts is America's Best movie star not because she is good in good movies--heck, Tom Hanks can do that--but because she is so popular in mediocre ones. Her every-award-winning role in Erin Brockovich was an aberration. Roberts typically fronts airy romantic comedies or treacly melodramas that might go direct to video if she weren't in them. And still they are hits. People go to see Roberts despite her films, happy to pay for the privilege of being in her virtual presence. They want what she's got--what, seemingly, she is. No matter what this critic may say about her next film, America's Sweethearts, you can bet the plexes will be full.

Through design or instinct, Roberts cannily feeds her goddess-next-door image. She ladles her charm onto David Letterman, and the cynic morphs into a swain. She was chattily charismatic picking up her laurels at the Golden Globes and the Oscars; if there were an award for Best Acceptance Speech, she'd win that too.

In her very public "private life," Roberts has an Old Hollywood flair for the kooky plot twist. She ditched Kiefer Sutherland at the altar; married Lyle Lovett on a whim and a prayer; was linked with dishy actors like Jason Patric and Daniel Day-Lewis. Now she and Benjamin Bratt are phffft. But her eminence obliges her to have these affairs. Being a movie goddess is not only a skilled trade; it's tough work.

And, in a very American way, it's an art. To satisfy the tabloids, Roberts won't stoop to getting arrested in connection with hard drugs or a hot car. No, she indulges in serial trysts, but blithely, like a madcap heiress that Carole Lombard might have played 60 years ago. And America loves her for it. That's classic, full-service star quality, folks. The Best.

--By Richard Corliss