It's rapidly becoming almost trite to declare 2004 the year of Jude Law, but I'll go ahead and state the obvious nonetheless. The question is, now what? So far this year, he's starred in I Heart Huckabees, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Alfie, Closer, as the Narrator in Lemony Snicket, and has been named People's “Sexiest Man Alive.” Disturbingly, I'm sure that I'm forgetting a few more 2004 credits in there.

Alfie seems as good a place as any to approach the sudden omnipresence of Law, especially considering that this remake of the Michael Caine classic is redolent with the odor of a PR release: it's less an Alfie for the 21-st Century than a two-hour progress report on Law's career to date and where he would like to see it go. It's an occasionally stylish infomercial, but it's still disconcerting to see one on the big screen.

Law has been a bit of an oddity over the years, as male stars go, never easily categorized as leading man, character actor, British artist, or box-office sex bomb. He's done a little of each, but never lingered long enough in any to be easily labeled. These modes make him perfect for an Alfie remake, in a year with which he seems to be trying to flood the Oscar categories and finally snatch a win. Law has reportedly turned down a few offers to remake Alfie before finally accepting this one, and it seems the timing is ripe for him to establish a solidified image and perhaps start erasing past aspects that might impede a smooth climb.

In its cheekiness and tone, the 1966 Alfie was inextricable from Swinging Mod London, and from the title character's East London home and haunts. Alfie might be very much the ladies' man, but he's not leaving his geographical or social sphere to make his conquests. Changing the geography is the first of many departures that the remake takes from the original, and fidgety though it may seem to extensively map the divergences-of course a remake won't normally be identical to the original-it's exactly their pattern that reveals what's going on in the new version. Caine's Alfie drives a taxi in East London and uses and abuses working-class girls; Law's Alfie drives a limo in New York City and seduces stylish and well-off women with his debonair British charm and designer wardrobe. Caine's Alfie seems to be suppressing a painful longing for time with his biological son because he can't stop to think that long or everything in his world will crumble; Law's Alfie is vaguely attached to the son of a girlfriend but never in any consistent fashion, and though he addresses the viewer about it many times, it seems that it's just something to pass the time. Caine's Alfie seduces a friend's wife, knocks her up, and in one of the most uncomfortable sequences I can recall, dispassionately arranges her appointment with a stunningly creepy illegal abortionist but then breaks down briefly when he discovers the emotional pain of the decision and the physicality of the aborted life.

It gets tedious to go on like this. But these instances might be sufficient to reflect upon the contrasts at work here. The Caine Alfie is about a man rooted in his class and social setting (as the image of the actor himself was in this era), who deliberately leads a shallow life that glosses over a deeper current of fears and events out of his control. Caine's Alfie skips along the surface of his pond like a stone, but he does his share of sinking to the bottom-only to struggle back up to the surface as fast as he can, gasping. He doesn't want to be in touch with himself, he doesn't really want to be in touch with anything, just keep moving forward-new birds, new fun, always on the move. His cancer scare causes him a moment of panic and physical collapse when he's forced to confront his actual mortality. It's a palpable relief for him, more than that the diagnosis isn't so dire, it also means he doesn't have to take on the painful burden of thinking about anything.

Law's Alfie, on the other hand, has apparently figured out how to mimic thinking about everything all the time without really caring about any of it. His Alfie is adrift, an “Englishman in New York,” (unlike Sting, he's eager to assimilate), and his desired movement is not so much forward but up. Better girls, better clothes, better pad, etc. He doesn't move from bird to bird out of boredom so much as he is perpetually seeking something better, and it seems the sole motivation of his leap to Susan Sarandon's character as companion. She lives in a palatial flat and leads a decadent, careless lifestyle he envies. Surely there is a sexual seduction as well, but despite how excellent Sarandon looks in this film, it's the material seduction for Law's Alfie that comes across far stronger.

The 2004 Alfie (both character and film) seems desperate to please the viewer: while it retains the confessional style of the original, it does so with a modern, inane, self-help twist. The old Alfie is trying to tell you how good he has it, and rushes past the unpleasant bits that make him hesitate, and the new is splaying his perceived woes before the viewer in a constant whine of self-justification, wheedling charm (though the film is too manufactured to retain a systemic charm, it proves impossible to kill Law charisma with all the close-ups lingering on his radiant smile), and desperate need for acceptance. It comes off in a schizoid split between the actor Law addressing you directly (“Please, I'm having a bit of a midlife crisis, just had an ugly divorce, but I'm still very pretty and charming and I'd like to be a star, if we could arrange that?”) and the character simply leaving the impression that perhaps what was once called poor or inconsistent characterization might be eligible for the new Prozac name of narcissistic ADD.

This is not a polemic against Law. It is however, rare, to see such a nakedly exposed moment in an actor's oeuvre. Law's career has not been headlining until now, but it has been extensive and unusual, and he has a lot of image baggage to either sharpen or discard at this point. He's already a cult favorite for his looks and often nuanced performances, and it doesn't seem unlikely that he could become a big star, but he hasn't made a concerted lunge at it until now, and his attempt at the transition demands attention, from those interested in the history of stars in cinema, towards what constitute the barriers between the two career types (cult and mainstream), and how they are to be successfully transcended. And so it's worth looking closely at what Law and his handlers seem to think those boundaries are too.

Bizarrely, despite the many incurable messes the film creates for itself - slavishly copying visual elements and exact shots from the original; the overall editing that makes a good argument against buying too many Final Cut plug-ins (must every transition be a fade/wipe combo?); the mawkish dialogue paraphrased (and overcooked to mushiness) from the older film; and the eagerness with which the script jumps upon any opportunity for cliché without ever committing to resolution - Law emerges as…quite likable, at least long enough to get you to listen to his pitch. His face is beautiful, his accent seductive, and his close-up incomparable. He knows he's been associated with some gender-bending or ambiguity in the past (Wilde, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Gattaca, et. al) but really, he isn't gay, he's just British, and he can handle a pool cue like an American alpha-actor. His press constantly comments on how much he likes children, and how much it pains him to be away from his own, therefore he can grow wistful about inadequate time with kids in movies too, to drive the point home. Every thing we're supposed to learn about Alfie seems to be concurrently selling Jude Law. He's a single Brit in the City, he can get gorgeous young girls, likes kids, not gay, and you have to like him too because of that smile. Just look closer in the eyes. Please? And if you didn't like this, but you like Julia Roberts, or Natalie Portman, we can try again next month. Because Jude Law is built for the close-up, and he may have a long run ahead with it, and even if we can say no to Alfie, the camera can't.