Suddenly Susan is out in the cold

In humour, there is often truth. So let's examine the cruel joke from the all-marionette movie Team America: World Police, which satirises Susan Sarandon, 58, as an actress whose talent is dwindling as she ages. So, in reality, has Sarandon lost her fire?

First consider that older actresses have a hard time of it. If you remember Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in their horror-movie humiliations of the 60s, perhaps you'll forgive Sarandon for Rugrats 2. Steady work isn't necessarily memorable work.

Other actresses have faded away or disappeared. Annette Bening, 46, only recently returned from a child-raising hiatus to star in Being Julia, about an older actress who trumps an All About Eve-like newcomer. Bening's movie says talent marinates over time.

Sarandon has stayed visible, but some of her choices have been peculiar since the glory days of Thelma and Louise (1991) and Dead Man Walking (1995).

Over the next few months, we can see her in Alfie and Shall We Dance?, both sensible choices. But they're no Vera Drake, a movie that will undoubtedly bring British actress Imelda Staunton, 48, an Oscar nomination. Staunton was so good that writer-director Mike Leigh named his untitled project after her character.

Granted, Vera Drake is a once-in-a-lifetime plum, and not all actresses can count on Mike Leigh to come along. And they can't all hope for the kind of European sensibility that enables older actresses - like Fanny Ardant, 55, and Charlotte Rampling, 59 - to thrive.

If middle-aged American actresses want to stay viable, they have to get big roles in small movies, or decent roles in big ones. Kim Basinger, 50, got a second wind with the summer movie Cellular, which played like two movies in one, an increasingly common ploy to attract a mixed-generation audience.

Is the problem that Sarandon is choosing unwisely by making films like the cringe-inducing The Banger Sisters, co-starring with Goldie Hawn (now 58), or has acting become merely a pay-cheque for her?

Our best guess - the kindest, anyway - is that there's a tipping point, after which mediocre roles and competing priorities lead to a lessening of effort over time. And you know what that means - jokes at one's expense made by marionettes.

- NZPA