oming from Mary Harron, the director who gave us the loathsome American Psycho and the excellent I Shot Andy Warhol, is a film about Bettie Page. Gretchen Mol is positively luminous as the twentieth century’s most notorious 1950s pinup, radiating natural confidence whenever she's in the buff in "The Notorious Bettie Page." And this happens often.

Harron attempts to put a feminist spin on Bettie's life, or what's known of it. Mol ("The Shape of Things," "Rounders") valiantly channels the vivacious spirit of Page, a Christian woman who slipped in and out of leather and lace to the shock and arousal of America. While Page was mildly notorious, the fully dressed woman wasn't terribly interesting; born in Tennessee in 1923, she grew up in a house where she was reportedly abused, and in a town where she was apparently gang- raped. Following an unhappy childhood and a failed marriage, she high-tailed it to NYC in the '40s where she drifted into secretarial work, beauty contests and, ever the enthusiast, she wasted no time in expressing herself through modeling, for which she demonstrated a quick ability.

Although she did her share of cheesecake, even gracing Playboy in nothing but a Santa hat, modeling would lead Bettie into the hands of adult filmmakers cum fetish photographers Irving and Paula Klaw (Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor) who are equal parts vaudevillians and mercenaries, pushing Bettie and other models to deliver the goods for clients while caring about their well-being.

It's a trivial character to play, but Mol gamely handles it, stripping down to recreate Page's most famous pin-ups, and clambering into bondage to act out her more "specialized" pictorials. It's a strong performance and, if she missteps anywhere, it's only in going a little too easy on Page's thick accent - the one thing that barred her from a more standard acting career.