THE INNER LIFE : Here’s a Screenwriter Who Strives to Give Women a Real Voice

Robin Swicord could be a heroine in one of her own screenplays: a woman overcoming the odds to triumph--if still rather anonymously. Consider:

* She has three films slated for production over the next few months: “Little Women,” to star Winona Ryder as Jo, at Columbia; “The Perez Family,” starring Marisa Tomei and Anjelica Huston, at Goldwyn; and “Matilda,” an adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel that she co-scripted with her husband, screenwriter Nick Kazan.

* A fourth Swicord script, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” adapted from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, once planned as a directorial project for Steven Spielberg, has come back to life in a proposed co-production deal between Universal and Paramount, produced by Kathleen Kennedy.

* She recently completed her directing debut with “The Red Coat,” a short autobiographical film, “a valentine to my grandmother,” financed by Disney, which premiered at the Aspen Film Festival in February.

Not a bad Hollywood run for anyone, especially for a woman whose protagonists are usually of the strong female persuasion. “I want to create real characters,” she said, “even if they happen to be women.

“Female characters rarely get to speak in their own voices,” insists Swicord in her soft Southern voice, evidence of her Florida upbringing. “Women have been misunderstood and absolutely silenced--they have been figments of men’s imaginations.”

Unlike, say, screenwriter Hilary Henkin’s strong women--who out-cuss, out-maim and out-shoot her male characters--Swicord’s protagonists choose self-expression, even sexual desire, as the motivation for their actions. But in a decided departure from Hollywood’s norm, these women are not punished for their choices.

For example, her version of “Little Women” is a slightly different take on the beloved tale of the four March sisters. In Swicord’s version (which will be produced by Denise DeNovi and directed by Gillian Armstrong), in contrast to the 1933 George Cukor version that starred Katharine Hepburn, the focus is no longer on the marriage prospects of the young women, or on how Jo, because she wants to “write,” loses the handsome Laurie as a husband. Instead, as in Alcott’s book, the film is set within the Women’s Progressive Movement of the late 19th Century, and tells the story of a young woman who wants to be an artist and writer, and who marries exactly the man who matches her passion.

Even a very different kind of character, like Dottie in “The Perez Family,” to be played by Marisa Tomei, she gets her way. Adapted from a novel by Christine Bell, “The Perez Family,” which began filming this spring, is set in Miami, within the Cuban immigrant community, and centers on Dottie, a fiery, passionate and openly sexual young woman. She may appear at first glance to be Hollywood’s quintessential slut--but with a difference. “Here is the kind of woman who has been caricatured over and over again on film. She is the ambitious slut-woman. She looks like a prostitute, she dresses like a prostitute, but she refuses to be treated like anything other than a woman with normal sexual desires.”

The script follows how Dottie works to get what she wants, even if what she wants is to buy lipstick and head for the nearest disco. And despite breaking the Hollywood conventions for a bad gal, Dottie wins the man she loves.

The central character in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” on the other hand, is a man who is born old, and who ages backward. But even here Swicord has molded the story to reflect some of her wider concerns, specifically, the need for personal fulfillment. “Benjamin Button” tells the story of a misunderstood child born into a family who tries to deny who he is, yet ultimately, the story is about the struggle and growth of an artist. Benjamin is a musician, and his quest to find himself, to stay true to what he must be, charts the evolution of American music across the 20th Century. “Like Jo March, Benjamin is different from the other members of his family,” she says.

Swicord was attracted to Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” (to be produced by Martin Bregman and directed by and starring Danny DeVito) because she recognized her daughters, Zoe and Maya, in the character of Matilda. The young protagonist is a precocious child of vision and determination. In the book, Matilda finds herself in an impossible family, and at an impossible school. But Matilda knows how to fight, and is also blessed with tremendous brain power for math and telekinesis.

“That is what I’m after,” says Swicord. “It is time to say, of course, women are enjoyable to look at, but we also have voices, desires, and an inner life.”