Iben Hjejle vs. Patricia Arquette
Battle of the Busty Yet Trusty Standbys

Sometimes, an actor's career ends gradually, almost imperceptibly, trickling off much in the way your faucet trickles off when your downstairs neighbour turns on the garden hose. No one can pinpoint the exact moment when irrelevancy alighted on your shoulder like a sparrow on Cinderella's windowsill, but one day you're something approaching a legitimate celebrity, and the next you've lost radio contact with fame.

Take, for example, Rosanna Arquette.

Then there are those actors whose careers end abruptly, much in the way the car full of crash-test dummies ends abruptly against the cement wall. One day you're a legitimately legitimate celebrity, and the next you're starring in some terrible possession movie and splitting with Nic Cage and walking into a Saturday matinee screening of High Fidelity and hearing, at that moment, your career ending with a kind of "zzziiippptt" sound, like when the vice-principal in a bad teen movie pulls the needle off the record at the high school dance.

Take, for example, Patricia Arquette.

The opening salvo of Patricia Arquette's career was True Romance, but her most promising moment came in Flirting with Disaster, in which she played not a doe-eyed ingenue/lust object, but a solid, loveable, irrepressible and ultimately appealing wife to the confused, neurotic, and adultery-prone Ben Stiller. Hollywood likes women who are easily classifiable: Bombshell (Sharon Stone); Wife (Bonnie Bedelia); Perfect Match Who Was Right There Before Your Eyes The Whole Time (Dana Delaney). Consequently, there are very few celebrities who can pull off the feat of being both frumpy and dependable enough to spur their husband/boyfriend to adultery believably, yet sultry and enticing enough that the audience doesn't feel cheated when the husband/boyfriend eventually slinks back to repair the relationship moments before someone jumps out of the bathtub wielding a knife.

Of course, [mild High Fidelity spoiler ahead] the part of Laura, the girlfriend in High Fidelity, calls for just such an actress; someone John Cusack can leave at the beginning of the movie and return to at the end. Enter Patricia Arquette......'s doppelganger, Iben Hjejle. Now, in the battle of Arquette/Hleje, Ibgen Hjejle has some obvious disadvantages. First, there's the fact that she has to mask her Dutch accent. Second: unlike Patricia Arquette, Hjelje isn't a scion of a famous Hollywood familial dynasty. Also: her name is Ibdar Habublee, which is somewhat difficult to remember, let alone spell.

Let's address these concerns one by one. First, she does a pretty good job of masking the accent in High Fidelity. Second: Yeah, right. And third: We learned to pronounce Schwarzenegger, we can learn to spell Ibar Hejefeld.

More importantly, she acquits herself admirably in a difficult role, and she has never to our knowledge played a part which required her to wear milky, "I'm possessed" contact lenses or pretend that the grumbly, satanic-sounding voice coming out of her mouth is actually hers.

By our count, that's Ivar 5, Arquette 0. And so, as we open the gate to welcome Ishtar Helsinki into the fold, we usher Patricia Arquette out, and, closing the gate behind her, tell her to say 'Hi' to Rosanna and to save a seat for David.

Advantage: Hidgelfidgets.