There was a moment back in 2002 when Jennifer Aniston gave such a lovely, heartbreaking performance in the small film "The Good Girl" that her future as a serious actress seemed secure. And it was less than a year ago that women in Los Angeles wore T-shirts reading "Team Aniston," sympathizing with her as a real-life good girl dumped by that cad Brad Pitt for the femme fatale from "Team Jolie." But since then Ms. Aniston's career has seemed like a case study in how not to become a movie star, how to forfeit the title of America's sweetheart and how savagely those on-and-off-screen roles can merge. How did her career go haywire so fast? And can her latest gambit, the box-office hit "The Break-Up," set it right?

A wan, predictable romantic comedy, "The Break-Up" reveals a lot about the problems - the brittle on-screen persona and the public relations misfires - behind her wavering career. The film, in which she and Vince Vaughn play a separated couple living in and squabbling over their Chicago condo, was No. 1 at the weekend box office, making just over $38 million, beyond the most optimistic industry predictions. That showing may owe something to the lack of competition for romantic comedies, but it is above all a tribute to the power of celebrity gossip and hype. Refusing to confirm or deny their rumored off-screen romance, the film's stars have not-talked about it separately on late-night shows, in print interviews, all over the place.

Ms. Aniston needed this hit, because "The Break-Up" follows a terrible professional run. In the last year she has appeared in two high-profile movies -the disappointing thriller "Derailed" and the stink-bomb comedy "Rumor Has It" - and the smaller "Friends With Money," in which she was the least convincing member of an ensemble.

The characters in these films are wildly different, but Ms. Aniston's performance isn't. She projects the same high-maintenance Jennifer Aniston style - the trademark sleek hair, the natural-looking makeup, the body so toned you wonder how many hours a day a person can spend with a trainer - whether she's supposed to be a con woman posing as an executive in "Derailed," an obituary writer for The New York Times in "Rumor Has It" (trust me, no one here looks like that), or a woman so demoralized she quits her teaching job to clean houses in "Friends With Money."

Along with that polished look, she exudes coolness and self-possession even when the part calls for warmth or vulnerability. She did warm and vulnerable winningly in the cult movie "Office Space" (1999). But lately all her characters uncomfortably resemble the one who made her rich and famous, the feather-brained Rachel on "Friends," who thought being pretty was her full-time job. It's as if she has substituted a movie-star pose for acting.

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