Style and substance

November 28, 2007 Contemporary film roles for female actors are not likely to provoke such a lament; in a perhaps fitting inversion, the purely ornamental roles have for the most part been marginalized to the realm of horror porn, a far cry -- or bloodcurdling scream -- from Ms. Kerr's white gloves and high-mindedness. Still, in a year when Cate Blanchett plays Bob Dylan, and Jodie Foster -- who once had her own onscreen go-round with Thai royalty -- plays Charles Bronson, there's no denying that those white gloves are a thing of the past. Digging behind the retro veneer, the 1960s-set AMC series "Mad Men" plays tantalizingly with sexual politics and offers some of the most compelling roles for women to hit the small screen in years.

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