Drew Barrymore’S Authenticity Fully Compensates For Her Failings

It’s seems like forever since Drew Barrymore was that cute little girl who became E.T.’s friend.

Actually, it was 17 years ago.

That, anyway, was when “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” was released to become one of the highest-grossing films in Hollywood history. Barrymore, who was born on Feb. 22, 1975, was just a small part of the film - the little sister to characters played by Henry Thomas and Robert MacNaughton. But she was memorable.

Almost as memorable was the fact that she is a direct descendant, through her father John Drew Barrymore, to America’s first family of the stage.

Neither, however, was as memorable as the various tabloid stories that she prompted during her teens and early 20s, stories that emphasized drug use, rehab clinics, six-week-long marriages, Playboy magazine poses, breast-flashings on late-night television and more.

Throughout all this, Hollywood - for whatever reason - didn’t give up on Barrymore. She graduated from toddler roles in such films as “Irreconcilable Differences” and “Firestarter” (both 1984) to such teen femme-fatale roles as “Poison Ivy” (1992) and the 1993 television production “The Amy Fisher Story.”

She made four films in 1994/95 that offered her roles that ranged from mannequin status (the western “Bad Girls” and “Batman Forever”) to something a bit more weighty in character (“Mad Love” with Chris O’Donnell and “Boys on the Side” with Whoopie Goldberg).

Then in 1996, even though she survived barely 10 minutes, Wes Craven’s “Scream” gave Barrymore new kind of visibility and, in turn, Hollywood marketability.

So by the time 1998 rolled around, it was no surprise that she should show up in a trio of films in her new guise as the sweet object of romance in Adam Sandler’s “The Wedding Singer.” She played pretty much the same kind of character in “Home Fries,” a film that she actually co-produced.

But the best of the three is a film that is available this week on video (see capsule review below). “Ever After,” a variation of the “Cinderella” story, uses Barrymore as an object of romance, but it makes her - instead of the prince - the central figure. As such, it gives her a 20th-century spirit and allows her to tap into that deep reserve of innate sweetness that she projects so well.

What sets Barrymore apart from other actresses? She’s not blazingly beautiful, she has limited acting abilities and even more limited range, and she’s sexy only in a kind of goofy, carefree way.

But she has something that can’t be learned: authenticity. On screen, Barrymore is never anything less than real. And rather than attempt to disguise her flaws, she wears them with no self-consciousness.

The result? Boasting a renewed sense of innocence, Barrymore at her best - despite the tattoos and checkered past - comes across as a self-aware but still wide-eyed modern woman, one who is as capable of standing alone as she of being a constant and supporting companion to someone worthy of her love.

She’s enough to cause even E.T. to phone home his praise.

The week’s major releases on video:

Ever After ***-1/2

Proving that there is more than one way to reawaken a fairy tale, Drew Barrymore plays a “Cinderella” clone and Anjelica Huston her wicked stepmother in this live-action adventure-romance. Director Andy Tennant updates the classic story, making the women stronger, the men more sensitive, but loses none of the magic in the process. The plot even uses Leonardo da Vinci as a kind-of fairy godfather. Mild enough for children, yet engaging enough for adults, the film proves once again that entertainment doesn’t depend solely on poo-poo jokes, car crashes nor bared breasts. Rated PG-13

Soldier **-1/2

It’s always frustrating when a film takes a powerful issue, in this case the complicated relationship between feelings and behavior, and wastes it. Kurt Russell plays a soldier whose conditioning since birth has made him into the perfect fighting machine. Yet one day he finds himself replaced by a genetically enhanced model. Dumped for dead, he ends up trying to connect with a group of humans marooned on a garbage planet. Unable to blend in, yet incapable of going back to what he once was, he remains in limbo - until his fighting skills are once again needed. The ultimate point seems to be that peace is all well and good but violence will always win in the end. As a philosophy, that’s not merely a cliche; it’s also too simple of an answer. Rated R