At the height of her reign as America's celluloid sweetheart, Julia Roberts lit up the silver screen with her genuine glow of warmth, innocence, vulnerability, devil-may-care chutzpah and quirky, bouncy, girl-next-door charm.

Then, somewhere around the time she earned an Oscar for Erin Brockovich, things began to change. First, she fell into a formulaic rut of damsels-in-distress rom-coms. Then she matured to chilly, calculating femmes fatales. The glow began to dim. Take a peek at the Duplicity trailer: Her smile's as wide as ever, but the humor has withered away.

Has Julia perhaps done a deal with the devil for diva-dom, only to lose her Hollywood soul?

Then again as Charlie Wilson's anti-Commie conscience she's sufficiently captivating, though waxen. There's still time for redemption. If Rourke did it ...

In the meantime, let's all jiggle our movie memories around until past and present blur for a flashback of some of JR's most heartwarming and hollow performances.

Top 5

Sleeping With the Enemy
A darker take on Roberts as yet another breakable yet brave brown-eyed girl all the more admirable for her Olympian escape and teary-eyed terror. And finally JR meets her leading man, big-hair match. (Kevin Anderson has the mane of a post-coital lion.)

Steel Magnolias
Who wouldn't want to save Shelby? She's childishly sweet on the surface, with a heartbreaking hopefulness and depth beneath. (Julia also dignifies a "drink your juice" diabetic disaster scene that could have gone comically wrong.)

Pretty Woman
Never has prostitution, or a prostitute, been so innocent or enchanting. We shouldn't buy it, but JR seduces us, and we do.

Mystic Pizza
Fired by passion and an impulsive sense of self-preservation, this pretty, pizza-pauper on the wrong side of the delivery route, may screw things up but at least Daisy, (and Roberts), gives it "a 100 percent."

Erin Brockovich
A ballsier and nobler than usual, but still believable, Oscar-worthy heroine who at last champions more than her own love life.

Bottom 5

Notting Hill
"I'm just a girl ..." I've said it before I'll say it again: Boohoo Julia. (And Hollywood.) Boo. Hoo. Your suffering is as sincere as your acting in this film.

Runaway Bride
All shtick and no substance make Julia and this Gere-Roberts rematch very dull. JR's romantic-melancholy routine is just as stale here as it was in Notting Hill.

Hook
You know you're being blackmailed by Steven Spielberg when ...

You're cast to play Tinkerbell to Robin Williams' Peter Pan. In Julia's smallest role yet (ha, ha) she delivers Tinkerbell with the affectation you'd expect from an adolescent boy, in a middle school play, sucking helium backstage before each scene.

The Mexican
Clearly, Gandolfini's this movie's muse. Julia and Brad, however, prove an uninspiring pair. Neither manages to make screen sparks fly in their shared scenes, and JR ends up stiff and shrew-y.

Stepmom
Sarandon vs. Roberts. Old dame vs. young usurper. Mom vs. stepmom. Girls, get ready to snipe in a catfight with little subtlety or chemistry from either opponent.

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