Will the real Natalie Portman please stand up?

Natalie Portman burst into the film-going consciousness about 10 years ago with her precocious star turn opposite Jean Reno in “The Professional.” Barely qualified for a training bra, much less training as an assassin, Portman was nonetheless convincing in the Mathilda role — by turns fearful, steely, clingy and stone crazy — and showed all the signs of becoming a beauty once she grew into her face.

Portman seemed like a prodigy destined for greatness back then, and for a while, she made all the right choices — working with prestigious directors like Woody Allen and Tim Burton, not over-exposing herself.

But along came George Lucas, and Portman’s high-profile part as Queen Amidala, followed by a couple of sugary chick flicks; critics slammed her performance in the “Star Wars” movies as phoned in at best, and she didn’t work much outside of the Lucas oeuvre, focusing instead on school.

Then Portman reversed course again, starring in last year’s well-regarded “Garden State” and pulling down an Oscar nom and a Golden Globe statue for her part in “Closer.”

So is Natalie Portman the outsized acting talent that (wisely) turned down a role in “The Horse Whisperer” to play Anne Frank on Broadway, or the board-like costume rack from “Attack of the Clones”? Is she a great actress who chooses her directors wisely most of the time, or is she just kind of flukey?

Will the real Natalie Portman please stand up?

Tara Ariano

I have to think she’s relieved that this “Star Wars” mishegoss is just about over. I absolutely grant that half the problem with George Lucas’ movies is George Lucas’ writing. Yeah, they’re supposed to sound like ’30s serials, so they’re stilted and stiff on purpose, I heard. But it takes actors of extraordinary charisma to make that crap sound natural, and … well, Billy Dee Williams, she ain’t.

I agree that, galactic battles aside, Portman has enjoyed a little renaissance of late — in fact, I’d say it started back in “Cold Mountain”; her segment — in which Jude Law’s Inman spends a chaste night in the home of Portman’s young war widow, only to face disaster with her the next morning — is one of the most affecting and horrifying in the film. It’s a small part, but she commits to it in a way I hadn’t seen before; she always seemed too cool for school in “Beautiful Girls,” “Everyone Says I Love You” and “Mars Attacks!,” so it really took me by surprise to see her express that kind of raw emotion.

And raw emotion, of course, was not in short supply in “Closer,” where Portman displayed none of her usual woodenness or reserve, held her own opposite the likes of Law and an especially brilliant Clive Owen, and blew away the wispy, wan Julia Roberts. I was prepared to be annoyed by her — especially coming off “Garden State,” in which I found her to be the most calculatedly cutesy part of a generally twee whole. But maybe Zach Braff’s writing is like Lucas’s in that respect; there’s only so much an actor can do to seem like a real person when she’s been made to walk around in a turtle-shell helmet and hold hamster funerals when she’s in her 20s.

Sarah D. Bunting
I was prepared to be annoyed by her in “Closer” too — because I’m almost always annoyed by her. I would certainly give her the benefit of the doubt as far as having to deliver Lucas’ lines, because I agree that only extraordinary charisma can put that dreadful writing over.

But in the absence of extraordinary charisma, enthusiastic scenery-chewing would work, too — it worked for Harrison Ford, God knows — and Portman doesn’t seem like she’s willing to do that either. I get a too-cool-for-school vibe from her too, in everything she does — like she’s coasting on the kudos she got for “The Professional,” in which, ironically, I thought she overacted. I can understand how she might have had trouble getting properly motivated for her scenes in “Star Wars,” and that acting opposite empty CGI space is a challenge, but — that’s the job she gets paid to do. From what I’ve seen, she’s not all that good at it.

On the other hand, there isn’t much to see, all told. Of the roles listed on her resume, more than a quarter of them are either “Star Wars” or not even out yet, so maybe she’s not so much “overrated” as “an unknown quantity.”

What’s not unknown is that she really should avoid short bob haircuts from now on. They give her a pinhead.

Tara
Well, there was a time when she had to share her particular showbiz slot with one Leelee Sobieski — both were bankable (then) jailbait who’d been the youngest things in pretentious, allegedly brainy fare and then went on to make dumb romantic comedies with people their own age. But then Sobieski unveiled her poetry to the world, thus stopping her career dead in its tracks and allowing Portman to peel off ahead of her. Still, to say Portman’s doing more impressive work than Leelee Sobieski is to damn her with the faintest possible praise, considering that I, too, am a better-known actress at this point than Helen Hunt’s Mini-Me is.

So I guess I just don’t know about Portman yet. I do know, however, that I wouldn’t want my teen years to be immortalized for the world to pore over and criticize, and I would hope that I was less annoying at 24 than I was at 14, as Portman seems to be. Given her kid-actor roots, she’s doing pretty well for herself: it’s hard to argue with an Oscar nomination. Let’s just hope she does more with hers, going forward, than Kate Hudson did. Continuing to steer well clear of Garry Marshall is probably a good idea.

Sarah
Not marrying a “rocker” nobody has cared about for a decade, whose scuzzy beard then swallows her “career,” is also probably a wise move — as is working with Milos Forman, which she’s doing in an upcoming movie about Goya. Artist bio-pics are a crapshoot, but nobody saw “Pollock” and Marcia Gay Harden netted an Oscar for that, so, based on her performance in “Closer” and the fact that she’s thus far avoided becoming a Corey in her personal life, I’m willing to see what Portman does post-Padmé before I decide on her one way or the other.

Unless of course she stars in a Nora Ephron film, in which case she’s dead to me permanently.

Tara
I think she’d die inside if she signed such a contract anyway.

Sarah
Well, that would answer a lot of questions about Meg Ryan.