Farther down the road to Jaglomdom tritzes James Toback. In his new picture, the would-be sex-and-revenge thriller When Will I Be Loved, the writer-director shows up in person to act out his fascination with his star, Neve Campbell. It's an exercise in confession and self-absolution, in which Toback (thinly disguised as a Columbia University professor) interviews the actress, has her own up to her sexual allure and then says he thought of hiring her because he fantasized, just a little, about getting her into bed. If you think this is more information than you needed, you may also feel that Toback should have dispensed with a few random cameos, which interrupt the proceedings only to prove that he knows Mike Tyson, Damon Dash and Lori Singer. Other Jaglomish self-indulgences that must be endured before the main event include scattered observations about architects (including Mies, mispronounced), musicians (principally Glenn Gould) and the subject matter of previous James Toback movies.

It is a variation, as one character baldly admits, on the premise of Indecent Proposal. Rich-girl Vera (Campbell) has been keeping company with a pinch-faced young hustler (Frederick Weller), and he in turn has been buzzing around the fabulously wealthy Italian media mogul Count Tommaso Lupo (Dominic Chianese). When the hustler suggests that old Tommaso would pay well for a night of love--the topic arises, not quite smoothly, after a doggie-style interlude on Vera's crimson sofa--young Ms. Sex Magnet says only, "Set it up." The rest is negotiation: financial, emotional and (at last) police procedural.

According to a canned interview with Toback, part of his reason for wanting to realize this story was his "very intense curiosity" about Neve Campbell. "I always felt that there was a great deal of range and ability she had that had not been shown in any of the movies I'd seen her in." Apparently, then, he missed Wild Things, in which she played a scheming piece of sex-bait much like Vera, only poor. Those of us who caught that movie (a delightfully sleazy picture, unencumbered by architects or Glenn Gould) may welcome Campbell's performance here--the sudden unaffected smile, so knowingly put on; the slyly underplayed verbal thrusts; the catlike gaze--but won't mistake it for anything new.

Is it any longer possible, though, for a femme fatale to seem new? Can she even be fatale? Take a quick side trip through Mira Nair's version of Vanity Fair, and you may wonder if women's wiles are now as unimaginable to the liberal mind as a smoking gun in Che's hand. That this Vanity Fair is meant to be liberal, or even leftish, is beyond doubt, since its main achievement is to bring colonialism from the background of Thackeray's novel to the foreground of the movie. As others have observed by now, the India trade is now visible everywhere, in small details and large. Many critics have credited this change to the influence of Edward Said--so I hope he won't also be blamed for certain other features of Vanity Fair: the expository longueurs, the fitful pace (aggravated by Nair's unwillingness to cut on action) and, worst of all, a Becky Sharp who is just too darn nice. My experience of Said suggests he might have admired Reese Witherspoon's person in the leading role but not her character's inability to toy with men, except in a doomed, what-can-I-lose manner. Back in the old days, when Miriam Hopkins was playing her, Becky made plans to win.

So did Neve Campbell, for that matter, back in the old days of Wild Things--1998!--when she and the audience got some nasty fun out of her plotting. Her sexual power in that movie was something for her to experience and use. Now, in When Will I Be Loved, it's good only as a subject for Toback to contemplate and discuss. Like the Che Guevara of The Motorcycle Diaries, Vera has a personal force that is posited, not felt, as a feature of her stardom and a memory of other, better movies.

But at least Walter Salles has the virtue of respecting his elders. Toback congratulates his own filmmaking at every moment, even giving Vera's hustler boyfriend the name of Ford Welles.

Poor Ford. Poor Welles.

The Pleasures of Home: Several readers have asked me to post guidance toward video sources, since many of the films I mention in this column get only a limited theatrical release. So: My favorite supplier, for rental or purchase, is Facets Multimedia in Chicago (www.facets.org). In general, if a film is available at all on video, you can get it from Facets--which means that El Viaje is out of reach, but Solanas's La Nube can be had.

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