Young actresses have an uphill battle surviving in Hollywood. So far Katie
Holmes has taken an interesting tack. Buoyed by the fortuitous success of "Dawson's Creek," on which she's perfectly cast and free to concentrate on mastering technical skills until she starts screaming from boredom, she's now had quite a number of big-screen roles, not one of which has been in a hit movie. With piffle like Disturbing Behavior and Teaching Mrs. Tingle, box-of fice failure amounts to complete failure. But Holmes's other films-The Ice Storm and Go, plus her new one, Wonder Boys-have been worthy projects that allowed her to work with gifted directors (Ang Lee, Doug Liman, Curtis Hanson) and remarkable casts that included older aces (Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand-eight Oscar nominations and three statuettes among them) as well as some of the best of her own generation (Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, Sarah Polley). When films like these don't make lots of money, they're still successful in other ways. Holmes hasn't had to carry any of her movies-she's been asked to do what she can be reasonably expected to do, which is give admirably natural, make-it-look-easy performances. So what's her next announced big-screen effort? If the proposed project The Gift goes forward as currently configured, Holmes will again havea smaller role in a movie directed by a savvy, respected hand (Sam Raimi) and written by an estimable team (Billy Bob, Thornton & Tom Epperson wrote One False Move-we rest our case). And she'll be surrounded by a cast that includes the impressive Cate Blanchett, the very skillful Ron Eldard, the gifted young character actor Giovanni Ribisi, the remarkably effective-when-used-according-to-directions Keanu Reeves, and the little known Kim Dicken, who was terrific in the underrated Zero Effect. And despite all the class attached to this film, it seems to have pulpy box-office potential-it's about a psychic who helps in the search for a young woman who may have been murdered. The Gift is a surprisingly low-budget film ($10 million) for all the gloss, which keeps the pressure low and gives Holmes another chance to be around solid, creative people. Not bad in a town where greedy agents eat other people's children and parents seem to be the ones who serve them up on a platter.