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We believe that if Jawbreaker had made even a tiny dent at the box office, Judy Greer would be a huge superstar right now. As it is, we credit its cult status with the fact that she's finally starting to have the career she deserves.

If you haven't seen Jawbreaker, let us hip you: for about the first third of the movie, Greer is Fern Mayo, a timid, nerdy high-schooler who had what seems to be kind of a homoerotic crush on Liz Purr, the sweetest and most popular girl in school, whose death by choking on the titular jawbreaker kicks off the action of the movie. But then, in order to bribe her into silence over the suspicious circumstances surrounding Liz's death, Liz's surviving friends (and accidental murderesses) offer to make Fern as popular as they, and make her over into Vylette, a sexy siren who soon starts believing her own hype and turns on her Pygmalions. It's like two roles, really -- dork and diva -- but Greer is equally convincing at both, and in one of her first-ever film roles, no less. We're probably the first commentators ever to describe any part of Jawbreaker as a tour de force, but as far as Greer is concerned, it is. Especially since the terrible, mousy wig she wears as Fern is practically a character unto itself. (We'd wager it weighed more than Rebecca Gayheart.)

The sad thing is that Greer so ably embodied both Fern the wallflower and Vylette the master manipulator (mistress manipulatrix?) that she's been doing nothing but those roles since. In the former category are her roles in The Wedding Planner (though we'll grant that working as J.Lo's assistant would make anyone want to blend into the background -- anyone who didn't end up wanting to go on a killing spree, that is); Adaptation. (though her fresh, pretty waitress is sufficiently assertive to spurn the advances of a sweaty, furtive Nicolas Cage, which makes her exactly assertive enough); and What Women Want (in which her ignored, miserable office assistant has a cri de coeur that only Mel Gibson can hear, allowing him to stop her before she kills herself. At least, we think that's what she did in What Women Want; that whole mess didn't exactly stick to our ribs, and we promptly forgot practically everything about it as soon as the closing credits rolled).

Then there are the manipulatrix roles: in Three Kings (in which she plays a young reporter trying to scoop a more senior colleague's stories by sleeping with her media escort for information -- tough work, given that said media escort is played by George Clooney); on Arrested Development (in which her seemingly buttoned-up appearance as Kitty -- pre-implants, at least -- George Sr.'s assistant and mistress, belies a devious core that won't scruple to serve George in whatever way possible, legal or no); and in the current 13 Going on 30 (in which a bitchy, backstabbing brat of an eighth-grader grows up into a bitchy, backstabbing brat of a glossy-chick-mag editor, played by Greer -- which in movie terms means she gets to go to parties and wear very expensive clothes, exactly like real magazine editors do if their name is Wintour, or preceded by a pretentious stand-alone E.).

In recent months, we've been hearing some buzz about two similarly titled and easily confused films: Elizabethtown and The Village. The former is the one with the frequently revolving cast, directed by Cameron Crowe. The Village is the one you may have already seen a trailer for, and looks all Amish and shit, and is directed by M. Night Shyamalan. But even amid the market confusion that will inevitably result from these 2 Films 1 Slot, there is one player who'll benefit: Judy Greer. 'Cause she's in both. Yeah, we're not thrilled that our girl's going to be in an M. Shite Shyamalan movie, which will probably require her to be unfaithful or castrating or cut in half and pinned against a tree, but we'll do our very best not to hold it against her as long as she doesn't make a habit of it.