It’s a happy birthday today to Hilary Swank, I guess, who turns 33 and celebrates the same way all sensible girls I know do — by not having sex with Chad Lowe. If anything is clear at this point in her career, it’s that Swank doesn’t really have a box office following of any sort of consequence (the above-average Freedom Writers pulled in only $36 million earlier this year, and The Reaping, though possessing the advantage of topicality, grossed only $25 domestically).

Still, Swank has done a pretty good job of just keeping her head down and cranking out respectable contemporary dramas (her oil-and-water relationship with period piece drama was confirmed with The Affair of the Necklace), character ensembles and the like. If she does this for another five or six years, folks might just come around to respect her as the authentic face and voice of her generation. Not saying that’s what she is, or that she’s there yet, but with two Oscar notches already on her belt, it can be achieved, because in addition to a few plumb supporting roles she can simply take middle-of-the-road genre product and try to give it some uplift, instead of having to swing for the fences.

All of this will further enrage my sister, who’s praying for a fall from grace and return to obscurity for Swank since strangers insist she looks like her (“you know, in the face,” one helpfully explained). Sorry, Erica. Odds are…