'Shirley Valentine' (R)

"Shirley Valentine," a tale of a phoenix risen from the frying pan, reaffirms that most hopeful of notions: It's never too late to start over again. A delightful, forgivably stagy adaptation of Willy Russell's one-woman play, it delivers a domestic engineer from drudgery and into the arms of an aging Greek stud.

Pauline Collins, hailed for her performance on stage, recreates the cheeky, soul-searching Mrs. Shirley Valentine-Bradshaw. A weary, slightly cynical 42-year-old driven to distraction by domestic tranquility, Shirley is Alice Kramden in a good mood. "Saint Joan of the kitchen sink," she calls herself, taking stock at midlife.

Her daydreams have turned to dishwater, a scenario playing in somebody else's soap opera. What happened to the high school rebel, the breathless bride, the devoted mother? "When did I turn into this and he into that?" she wonders of herself and husband Joe (Bernard Hill), a scowling cipher who takes her for granted.

As hintful as Heloise, Shirley holds forth on love and such, like a pithy stand-up comic peeling potatoes and flipping eggs. "Marriage is like the Middle East, isn't it? There's no solution," she quips. Or, "I think sex is like the supermarket. It's just a lot of pushin' and shovin' and you still come out with very little in the end."

When her friend Jane (Alison Steadman) wins a two-week Greek vacation, she invites her to share the trip, a proposal that takes all the timorous Shirley's resolve. Plans go awry when the feminist Jane abandons her for a romance with a Greek olive magnate -- the "walking groin." "Go to his villa and have a good time, and give his olives a good pressing," says the irritated Shirley. Then she too has a fling, with an easygoing Greek tavern owner (Tom Conti, who glues on a fat mustache for the role). The earth moves -- actually the boat rocks -- and Shirley realizes that tomorrow can be the first day of the rest of her life.

There's a distaff Neil Simonality to Russell's screenplay, a dinner theater profundity that's somehow too easy. And the heroine talks to the walls -- the fourth wall included, a la Matthew Broderick in Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs." It's theatrical, but what's the alternative in adapting a one-woman tour de force? Mental monologue, a voice-over, a confidant?

Despite the contrivance, Collins, a versatile and mischievous performer, is irresistible. We are drawn to her like magnets to the refrigerator. Russell and producer-director Lewis Gilbert, who collaborated on "The Education of Rita," have a knack for dramatizing women in transition, and Shirley is as versatile as a Cuisinart -- she's every woman who ever wanted to burn her potholders.