To many, she's become the curiously overlooked film goddess, an actress of verve and moxie and terrific screen presence who seldom gets a role worth her mettle. How can Swedish actress Lena Olin have such an impact in movie after movie and still not win enshrinement as a star of the front rank? It's a mystery.

Not to say she isn't in demand. She has been working almost without pause since Ingmar Bergman took her under his wing and funneled her to the Stockholm Royal Dramatic Theatre.

Her latest -- and it's only a dalliance -- is Ron Shelton's goofy action comedy "Hollywood Homicide," which opens here Friday. Olin plays a late-night radio personality/pyschic who has won the heart of cop Harrison Ford and also helps him solve a murder.

Now living in Westchester County, N.Y., Olin's first English-language pictures drew attention to her beauty and her skill. The first was a version of Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (a.k.a, "The Unbearable Heaviness of Reverent Adaptation"), a well-made if somewhat plodding piece of work from Philip Kaufman in 1988. The second was Paul Mazursky's "Enemies: A Love Story (1989), in which she played a Holocaust survivor and for which she earned an Oscar nomination.

Her next film, Sydney Pollack's "Casablanca" homage, "Havana"(1990), was better than the reviews suggested. It showcased Robert Redford's best performance in many years and a goodly portion of chemistry between the stars. But its commercial failure unfairly dropped her from the A-list.

Those who've caught Olin on TV's "Alias" as Jennifer Garner's formidable secret-agent mother are seeing only a fraction of her talent, just like the folks who raved over "Chocolat," directed by her husband Lasse Hallstrom, saw only a shadow of the real actress. Here is a woman with the most seductive (from steely to soulful) eyes on the planet and a personality that hints at more than a little danger. Remember her great, zesty performance opposite Gary Oldman as the villain of the noir thriller "Romeo Is Bleeding" (1993)? She blew every other Oscar contender out of the water but lost. She was amazing again in Theresa Connelly's "Polish Wedding" (1998), well-cast as the force-of-nature mom (and sparring partner for husband Gabriel Byrne).

Now she waits for a feature part that will test her again. So do we.

- Charleston.Net