Oh, Nicole, you are hot, and you surely know it

These days, nobody’s a bigger star than Nicole Kidman . From the days when she was starring on Australian television , Kidman has been working for this moment — when, Oscar in hand, she is able to pick and choose among all the best roles available in Hollywood product. Based on the work that she did in “To Die For,” “Moulin Rouge” and “The Hours,” she deserves whatever she can get.

Her abilities, and star power, are no doubt how she scored the lead female role in “The Human Stain,” opposite Anthony Hopkins, and why we can expect to see her in the forthcoming “Cold Mountain” (Anthony Minghella’s Christmas present to us all). But just because she can have pretty much any role she wants doesn’t mean she should ask. Or accept.

Case in point: “The Human Stain,” Robert Benton’s moody, meditative adaptation of Philip Roth’s study of, among other things, political correctness, race relations, semantics, prostate cancer, impotence, class consciousness, PTSD, sociopathy, domestic violence, boxing, ball room dancing, Irving Berlin , isolation, artistic frustration and the many uses of Viagra. How you put all these things in one film is a puzzle, and it’s a puzzle that Benton doesn’t solve.

Besides Hopkins being miscast (Ben Kingsley would have been a better choice), Kidman is put in the position of trying too hard. To be working class (yeah, sure). To be the ex-wife of a batterer. To be sexy. And of course Kidman knows how to do the last. But as usual, she seems to be playing the role with one eye in the mirror, as if to say, “Oh, look how pretty I am.” Her character is supposed to be really angry, which is something Julia Roberts could do while juggling a half-dozen Barney dolls. But Kidman is too busy channeling Narcissus to do much more than smile with self-pleasure.