SWEET STORY, GOOD ACTORS A PLUS FOR 'CURVES'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

YOU DON'T WANT to rechristen ``Real Women Have Curves'' ``My Big Fat'' anything, despite how desperately this ethnic family movie strives to be the Latino version of that monster indie hit.

And it isn't just because ``Curves'' is a smarter, more serious and intermittently better movie than that. It's also because the main element that makes this one superior is its refreshing, healthy and pleasantly unforced appreciation of plus-size women.

Also notable is the movie's light but complex dialectic regarding exploitation and the dignity of work. What tends to undercut these intriguing notions, however, is a fairly pat central conflict between a second-generation daughter with opportunities and her immigrant mother whose retrograde world view is chiseled in emotional stone.

Co-screenwriter Josefina Lopez freely adapted the script from her popular, more broadly comic play. Colombian director Patricia Cardoso makes her commercial feature debut.

Teenage Ana and old-before-her-time Carmen Garcia are played by Woodland Hills newcomer America Ferrera and veteran Lupe Ontiveros (``Chuck & Buck,'' ``Storytelling,'' ``Zoot Suit''). The duo won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and it's easy to see why. They manage to generate a great deal of parent-child animosity without ever getting too unsettlingly (or honestly) hateful about it. Individually, the usually impeccable Ontiveros has a few too many actorish moments, while Ferrera always appears spontaneous, smart and truthful in her responses to a world that seems designed to squelch Ana's aspirations but can occasionally offer intoxicating insight and good fortune in the bargain.

Ana lives in a small, lovingly kept East L.A. home with her overdramatizing mom, kind father, adoring grandpa, reliable older sister Estela (the very fine Ingrid Oliu) and an ongoing parade of cousins and other extendeds. Ana's ridden many buses for many years to Beverly Hills High, where she's excelled academically. Her favorite teacher, Mr. Guzman (George Lopez, on concerned-educator autopilot), even arranges for Ana to get a scholarship to Columbia University.

But Carmen feels that it's high time her chubby little darling started earning a living, just as she's had to since the age of 13. Since Estela owns the small sewing factory where Carmen works, and her roster of seamstresses is unexpectedly halved just as a make-or-break order deadline looms, Ana has more than one reason to swallow her ambitions (and, though it takes a little longer, her superior attitude) and pitch in as a summer steam-presser.

Meanwhile, former classmate Jimmy (Brian Sites) starts calling and eventually motors in from the Westside for a few surreptitious dates with the surprised and delighted Ana. Of course, Carmen can't know that she's going out, or even that she stops being a virgin - even though the circumstances are ideal, with a skinny rich kid who happily appreciates her for all her ample glory before she lets him make love to her.

It's one of the sweetest teen sex scenes in American cinema. But it's topped for sheer, exuberant body politics by a bit in the virtual sweatshop (Estela won't turn on the a/c because it blows dust on the dresses) when all the plus-size employees - excluding the scandalized Carmen, of course - strip to their undies and celebrate their cellulite.

Harping on her daughters' weight is just one of many ways the manipulative Carmen tries to keep the girls in line. For all of her businesswoman's levelheadedness, Estela has obviously been damaged by this. But Ana challenges Carmen at every turn, even if she can't always buck her mother's authority.

And that's where these women get a little unreal. Their conflicts should be crueler, more extreme. The movie is being co-released to theaters by HBO Films, and there is something about it that's very televisionlike, a timidity when it comes to exploring its themes and emotions too strongly.

That said, this is more than just a big-screen sitcom, which is more than can be said for some fat indie hits.

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES - Three stars

(PG-13: language, sex)

Starring: America Ferrera, Lupe Ontiveros, Ingrid Oliu, George Lopez, Brian Sites.

Director: Patricia Cardoso.

Running time: 1 hr. 25 min.

Playing: Citywide.

In a nutshell: This generational conflict, though convincing, doesn't dig deep enough, but lead actress Ferrera's large-girl pride is marvelous and affecting.