CAMPION PAINTS A QUIRKY, MOODY `PORTRAIT OF A LADY'.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Critic

Because it won three Oscars in 1993, people are starting to forget what a peculiar and haunting movie ``The Piano'' was, and they are likely to come to ``The Portrait of a Lady,'' filmmaker Jane Campion's new movie, expecting it to be mainstream and accessible.

If so, Campion is going to throw them a curve ball. In this adaptation of Henry James' 1881 novel, Campion is as challenging and eccentric a filmmaker as she was in her earliest works, and nothing, apparently - not the prospect of deepening her success (in the conventional sense) and not the high-stakes budget of this sumptuous production - has deterred her from her highly personal approach.

That's commendable, but one wishes ``The Portrait of a Lady'' were a more effective movie. It's one thing to affect a unique cinematic language; it's another to be able to use it to sustain communication with an audience. ``In Portrait of a Lady,'' even the most sympathetic viewer may ultimately feel excluded from the self-reflective conversation.

Still, this is a movie that deserves to be seen and one that holds out many rewards for the adventurous. Playing Isabel Archer, a headstrong young American abroad, Nicole Kidman makes a brilliant initial impression, and at first the movie's oddball bits of actor business are entirely welcome as a means of throwing the viewer off balance and challenging expectations.

This, after all, is what the story is about - Isabel is unbowed by the conventions of decaying European society and is determined to explore life on her own terms. She baffles everyone by rejecting a marriage proposal from a suitor (Richard E. Grant) of high position and great fortune; and amuses her likable cousin Ralph (Martin Donovan) by swearing she'll never marry.

When she comes upon the music-loving Madame Merle (Barbara Hershey, in a fine performance), who is apparently as independent as Isabel longs to be, the two strike up a friendship.

But from a promising start, the movie falls prey to an area of grave miscasting. We meet Gilbert Osmond (John Malkovich), an idle intellectual of little fortune and less personal charm, who seems to have a slightly incestuous relationship with his young daughter (Valentina Cervi) and an equally unsettling one with Merle, who urges him to meet Isabel.

Malkovich plays Osmond as disaffected, bored and detached from his own emotions; it's the same fey patrician game-player he's been testing our good natures with since ``Dangerous Liaisons,'' performed this time with particularly odd rhythms and all the sex appeal of a snapping turtle.

So when Isabel, who has recently inherited a fortune, falls hook, line and sinker for this manipulative man, we're a little perplexed; when she marries him and, in an abrupt transition, disappears completely into his sadomasochistic shadow, we are left behind.

Perhaps if Osmond had been played by someone who seemed to belong to the family of warm-blooded mammals, we could sympathize with Isabel's folly; as it is, we can only reflect on how she fooled us for a brief time that she was going to do something interesting with her life.

Her cousin Ralph, who's in love with her despite their blood ties, had the same idea; unlike us, he keeps the faith. Donovan, who has most of the good lines in the movie, brings a needed dose of humanity and ease to the screen, which seems ironic, since he usually plays droll and aloof characters in the movies of Hal Hartley.

Lots of other oddball actors come in and out, including Mary Louise Parker as a pushy, loud American who comes off a lot like Bugs Bunny in a bonnet; and Viggo Mortenson as a kind of gentleman stalker who keeps pursuing Isabel all around the world, no matter how mean she is to him. Meanwhile, Campion uses a lot of tight shots and gloomy interiors to make us feel we are suffocating in a decadent society along with the characters.

Campion conveys the material with so many distancing devices and such detachment that it's simply not very involving.

She prizes form over content, and one often feels that this movie is more about making a movie and watching a movie than it is about the story itself.

On the other hand, the visual experience is highly rewarding, since cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh (``The Piano,'' ``Angel at My Table'') is out to surpass himself - and does.

At every turn, there is some highly original composition to absorb or some stunningly colorful approach to a scene, so there is always plenty of diversion here, even if one has stopped following the story.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Portrait of a Lady'' (PG-13; adult content).

The stars: Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Barbara Hershey.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jane Campion. Screenplay by Laura Jones, adapted from the novel by Henry James. Produced by Monty Montgomery and Steve Golin. Released by Gramercy Pictures.

Running time: Two hours, 24 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle's Sunset 5, AMC Century 14.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Nicole Kidman stars as Isabel Archer, a headstrong young American determined to challenge convention abroad in ``The Portrait of a Lady.''