Marcia Gay Harden vs. Elizabeth Perkins
Battle of the Disappointed Dames

Outside the realm of porn, not everyone in a movie gets to be happy-go-lucky and fun. Even in Party Girl, there had to be serious, studious librarians surrounding Parker Posey to make it clear that she's the girl with the party. Many actresses get notice in both fun and un-fun roles (like Julianne Moore playing a Victorian schemer in An Ideal Husband, a grieving, unhinged widow-to-be in Magnolia, and...whatever the hell she was doing in The Ladies Man and Evolution), but not everyone is lucky enough to be recognized for their full range, and for every Melanie Griffith helium-giggling her way through fun roles in Something Wild, Working Girl, Born Yesterday, Milk Money, Now and Then...you get the idea), there are fine actors like Elizabeth Perkins and Marcia Gay Harden, getting pigeonholed as onscreen killjoys.

This is not to say we are under the impression that Harden or Perkins is incapable of playing fun characters -- certainly both are eminently capable. Consider Harden's clowning in the Leslie Nielsen vehicle Spy Hard, or Perkins's crustily making it through all four episodes of her late sitcom vehicle Battery Park. Our point is that, even when they are playing characters located on the "fun" range of the spectrum, neither Perkins nor Harden ever finds herself letting go with Griffithesque abandon; rather, even the fun characters are tinged with sorrow, pain, and -- yes, as the title of this article suggests -- disappointment.

Consider Perkins's Susan in Big. Eventually she does come around to appreciate the charms of Tom Hanks's gangly man-child, but first he has to chip away at her cold, prickly Yuppie armour. Think about it -- would a truly happy woman date a guy played by John Heard? For her part, Harden's had her share of sexy, vampy roles -- Verna in Miller's Crossing, Ava Gardner in Sinatra -- but magnetic though they may be, these characters don't tend to come to a good end, the men in their lives generally screwing them over but good.

These days, both Harden and Perkins are better known for playing characters who've been kicked in the teeth by life. In Indian Summer, Perkins plays a seemingly together professional woman, but she's still pining for her long-married camp boyfriend. In the ill-advised Miracle on 34th Street remake, she's another seemingly together professional woman -- this time a brittle department-store manager and single mother who will not admit of the possibility that Santa Claus could be real, even for her daughter's sake. And in last year's 28 Days, Perkins is the long-suffering, bitter sister of Sandra Bullock's alcoholic pill-popper. She is, in short, no stranger to playing characters who are no stranger to disappointment.

As for Harden...well, second verse, same as the first. Harden is an overlooked, damaged daughter in Used People, a timid, dominated wife in The Spitfire Grill, and...well, a former lover of Richard Dreyfuss in this fall's new series The Education of Max Bickford -- and sleeping with Dreyfuss is a sure recipe for disappointment, if not outright trauma. But the apex of Harden's career playing disappointed dames came with her Oscar-winning role in Pollock. As Lee Krasner, Harden must live in the title character's shadow, as his career progresses and hers remains stagnant. When she finally gets to explode (in, yes, her Oscar clip), it's like she's loosing all the pent-up rage of all the subjugated characters she's ever played.

Finally, Perkins and Harden are identical from the nose down. Check 'em out. It's spooky. There is just something about the upturned tilt of their noses and the shape of their mouths that lend themselves to resigned sighs, accompanied by lips set in a grim, defeated line.

Advantage: You don't get no Oscar for playing no Wilma Flintstone. Harden takes it.