'PRINCESA' DOES LITTLE WITH PROVOCATIVE PREMISE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

``Princesa'' adds a few extras to the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold formula. Like a brain of mush. And certain equipment.

This is not to imply that this Brazilian-Italian co-production is unintelligent or dishonest. It does in fact seem all too predictably real, in both its working-girl-comes-to-terms and transsexual-seeks-true-love storylines.

But the bigger problem is that the title character, a South American gender bender making her living on the streets of Milan, is so vapid beyond her overriding concerns with sexual identity that the plot's mainspring - a customer falls in love with her for who she is, not what she is - never really convinces.

Ingrid de Souza plays the exotic Fernanda/Princesa, who's come to the big European city to earn enough money to complete her transformation. She hooks up with a crowd of typically feisty Brazilian streetwalkers, who are apparently the ethnic types most favored by the confused men of Italy.

Her elderly pimp Karin (Lulu Pecorari) takes a protective shine to Fernanda, eventually inviting the youth to stay in her posh apartment. Although Karin does not have overt sexual designs on the newcomer, there does seem to be emotional dependence. This arrangement is severely stressed when a married pickup, Gianni (Cesare Bocci), who was initially horrified to discover that Fernanda wasn't all woman, comes back around. He soon falls completely in love - with that elusive inner Princesa, remember - eventually leaving his wife and offering to pay for the final operation.

But as Fernanda experiences more of the everyday, homemaking role she's dreamed of living her whole life, second thoughts emerge. Welcome to the dawn of feminist consciousness, baby.

A filmmaker such as Pedro Almodovar or the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder would have found delectable humor and unique emotional complications in Fernanda's predicament. But director Henrique Goldman - who developed the film from an autobiography by a suicidal, real-life Fernanda - views all of this with the most prosaic seriousness. His is an obvious, soap-opera approach to the material, and it's not helped by a chintzy, Eurojazz score that sounds like it was borrowed from a heavy-breathing '60s romance.

De Souza's photogenic but masklike face doesn't do much to reveal deeper crosscurrents in her feelings or thinking. And since the character is supposed to be only 19, it's reasonable to believe that there may not be much of that going on anyway. Reasonable, but not very satisfying, moviewise. Bits of homesickness, Catholicism and despair inform her story, but even as played by someone who may very well be living something close to it, ``Princesa'' never gets crowned with the jewel of vivid characterization.

``PRINCESA''

(Not rated: sex, nudity, language, substance abuse, mild violence)

The stars: Ingrid de Souza, Cesare Bocci, Lulu Pecorari.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Henrique Goldman. Written by Ellis Freeman and Goldman. Produced by Rebecca O'Brien. Released by Strand Releasing.

Running time: One hour, 36 minutes.

Playing: Nuart, West L.A.

Our rating: Two and one half stars

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Photo:

Ingrid de Souza as Fernanda and Cesare Bocci as Gianni deepen their relationship in a scene from ``Princesa.''