Is Zooey Deschanel the New Andie MacDowell?

As we discovered when comparing the careers of Shia LaBeouf and Michael J. Fox, as well as Leslie Mann and Madeline Kahn, most movie stars have big-screen ancestors. It's hard to be a breakout talent who defies categorization and precedent. In the case of Our Idiot Brother star Zooey Deschanel, her career has matched one other raven-haired thespian's rise to prominence: That would be Andie MacDowell.

Now, it's only fair to note the differences between these two before we pigeonhole them in French Lieutenant's Woman-style generational parallelism. Deschanel is an acclaimed songstress with the hip outfit She & Him, and she didn't exactly come to represent out-of-nowhere screen stardom as Andie MacDowell did in 1989 -- even if her breakthrough role was similar. Furthermore, MacDowell's status as a consummate leading lady is a bit different (or more realized, I should say) than Deschanel's burgeoning draw as a comic-romantic actress. Still, their three biggest similarities line up pretty well.

Fashionplate credibility

Before MacDowell stormed the Sundance circuit, she populated the pages of Vogue with modeling gigs, working with titans like Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Herb Ritts. Deschanel never made a career out of her fashion instincts, but she is certainly as defined by her vintage hipster cuteness (twee-ness, to invoke an exhausted but necessary word) as she is by her acting and singing abilities. She's a ribbon-adorned paperdoll with a heart pendant. You might even say MacDowell and Deschanel built their It Girl foundations on different takes of the same high-brow glamor.

Indie breakthrough

Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the movie that propelled Andie MacDowell into a lifetime of festival appearances, garnered her an Independent Spirit Award in '89. Deschanel copped the same nomination in 2004 for her role in All the Real Girls. Both of these helped propel new writer/directors (Steven Soderbergh, David Gordon Green) into prolific careers. and both established their female stars as new molds of intelligent, bankable actresses.

Calendar-defying comedy

Groundhog Day is a film that works in part because Bill Murray sells us so well on its kitschy conceit, but it's Andie MacDowell -- his coworker and eventual paramour -- whose down-to-earth appeal makes the repetitious premise feel like an artful play on the unrequited male crush. In (500) Days of Summer, Deschanel's character, who is both reasonable and maddening, makes the film's chronological disarray seem like the natural response to the befuddlement of dependent dating. Though Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the true star and soul of the movie, his enervated, working stiff appeal can't function without her aloofness. These are two women who use slightly distant, splendidly telegenic appeal to amp up their costars' delirium.

Is there a better parallel for Deschanel's career? Who would that be? Sound off in the comments below.