MCDORMAND A HIT AS HEDONISTIC MOM.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

SOME MOVIES are redeemed by a single outstanding performance.

That's the case with ``Laurel Canyon,'' a kind of been-out-in-the-California-sun-too-long rehash of writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's far more persuasive ``High Art.'' The new film's pacing is easygoing, it's dramatic complications hard to swallow and its moral urgency ... well, not very urgent, considering what's at stake.

But in a cast made up mostly of people pretending to be people from somewhere they're not, only Frances McDormand seems to know how to get the most out of the smoggy material, giving one of her most natural and appealing characterizations. This is saying something for an actress prone to stylization and a role in which all of the key elements point to a very unappetizing individual.

The freest of spirits roosting in L.A.'s legendary boho hills, McDormand's Jane is a 40-something record producer whose only serious goal in life is to make good pop music. Other than that, it's been a long, hazy parade of marijuana smoke, poolside orgies and short-term lovers of both sexes. And guess what? Jane's quite happy, certainly successful and in possession of most of her faculties. She just likes to enjoy herself and doesn't understand anyone who wouldn't want to as well.

Which means, according to this overdetermined plot, that Jane and her adult son Sam (Christian Bale) don't understand each other. In an act of rebellion worthy of the sitcom ``Family Ties,'' Sam has graduated from Harvard Medical School and vowed to live as straight a lifestyle as anybody attractive as he can. Equally gorgeous and, we are to presume, hedonistically inexperienced is Sam's Boston Brahmin fiancee Alex (Kate Beckinsale). She's a medical researcher whose postgrad thesis is - we're not making this up - a dry dissertation on the reproductive patterns of fruit flies.

The script conspires to send Sam west for an internship - and for mom to be home when she was supposed to be on tour somewhere. Also more or less living at the pleasure hacienda is an English band Jane's trying to coax a hit single out of - and whose lead singer Ian (Alessandro Nivola) needs no coaxing by her for extracurricular enjoyments, despite his being around Sam's age.

Sam is as aghast as he's always been at his mother's shenanigans, and he profusely apologizes to Alex for bringing the dear girl into this pit of depravity. But as Sam pulls more and more all-nighters at the mental hospital (the place's pull includes an exotic Israeli intern, played by ``Solaris' '' Natascha McElhone), Alex opens up to the joys of home recording studios and chlorinated menages. For her part, Jane is intrigued by the possibilities of becoming the worst mother and best mother-in-law ever.

Sam and Alex are problematic. One look at either of them and you can't believe that they couldn't possibly be as naive as we're expected to assume. In Sam's case, some willful effort has been made toward that end.

Less convincing is Sam's animus toward his mother. Sure, overreaction to a pattern of parental selfishness is common enough, but it's not presented in a way that's very convincing here. Besides, considering the libertine atmosphere Sam was brought up in, he turned out remarkably well, so Jane must have been doing something right.

And, bottom line: What guy in his right mind wouldn't love to have grown up with a mother this cool?

LAUREL CANYON - Two and one half stars

(R: sex, nudity, drug use, language)

Starring: Frances McDormand, Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale, Natascha McElhone, Alessandro Nivola.

Director: Lisa Cholodenko.

Running time: 1 hr. 43 min.

Playing: Laemmle Town Center 5, Encino; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Landmark NuWilshire, Santa Monica; Edwards South Coast Village 3, Costa Mesa.

In a nutshell: Borderline daffy, laid-back L.A. rehash of Cholodenko's superior ``High Art,'' but McDormand is fantastic in every scene.