"Mrs. Henderson Presents" arrives on a wave of Oscar goodwill for Dame Judi Dench. She was nominated earlier this week for leading actress but, truth be told, her slot probably should have gone to Ziyi Zhang, Maria Bello or Gwyneth Paltrow.

		"Mrs. Henderson Presents" Rating: R for nudity and brief language Starring: Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins Director: Stephen Frears "Mrs. Henderson Presents" Web site

The Oscar stamp may raise expectations for her or the film, which was inspired by true events. Dench plays wealthy Laura Henderson, literally fresh from her husband's burial when she confides to a friend that she's "bored with widowhood." How inconsiderate of her husband to die, she says.

Ding, ding, ding! Not a 69-year-old woman of convention.

She tries to amuse herself with hobbies and charitable endeavors but nothing catches her fancy until she spots a small theater for sale in the heart of London's Soho section. She buys it and, after insulting him in her patented way, hires a feisty pro named Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to run it.

Mrs. Henderson suggests a musical revue, and he hits upon the idea of nonstop shows, dubbing it Revuedeville. It's a hit, inspiring copycats and forcing the pair to up the ante. Why not borrow an idea from Paris and have the chorus girls be naked?

That kind of thing is just not done in England, but they find a way to make it work -- tasteful tableaux -- and then face a bigger threat than possible censure or closure in the arrival of World War II.

The outside world intrudes on the theater in the form of hordes of soldiers and bombs, but "Mrs. Henderson Presents" exists in a bubble. It never or rarely looks outside this insular world; it's as if The Windmill had been plopped into a snow globe, with the flakes flurrying about.

The fate of the one of the performers is a movie cliche and Mrs. Henderson is so larger-than-life that she's off-putting at times. Characters with big personalities -- Dench's Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love" or her Lady Catherine in "Pride & Prejudice" -- are best served in small doses.

"Mrs. Henderson," a dramatic comedy with music, sounds much naughtier than it is, but just so no one gets the wrong idea: The women are nude but artfully posed. And Bob Hoskins is shown in the buff, briefly.