Already one thing is clear: 2009 is going to be Kate Winslet year. This month, she has not one but two films out — Revolutionary Road and The Reader — that have already earned her a pair of Golden Globe nominations. But her extraordinary performances (and, in The Reader, she will take your breath away) are only part of the reason Winslet is having her big moment. She has finally become that rare thing: the female celebrity we all genuinely get. It’s partly that, at 33, she is now in her prime; it’s partly about our expectations (we’ve changed, too); and it’s a lot to do with timing. Women-we-all-get don’t come along that often, because they have to tick all the right boxes and chime with the zeitgeist. Now, for the first time since, oooh, Princess Diana in the mid-1990s, perhaps, KW happens to have hit the spot. Here’s why:

The look Kate has the perfect look for now, which is toned and shapely enough to get away with an Hervé Léger bandage dress, but so not thin. It’s the new standard — bye-bye bones, hello body. Yes, there was the recent retouched (probably) Vanity Fair shoot, but we see her naked from 10 angles in The Reader, so it’s not as if she hides behind retouchers as a rule. And there’s no denying that her breasts are her own, and her bum, which can’t be said of many A-listers. Or any.

The lifestyle No bling, no teeny kinder-whore dresses and bodyguard-support-required heels. No dinners at Nobu with Katie Holmes, or photo ops with Mr Armani. KW has acquired a lot more polish in the past couple of years, but just the right amount, not the bonkers, two-types-of-nail-technician sort. She still rolls her own and she doesn’t do haunted in sunglasses with pixelated children. Or Kabbalah. Or Scientology.

The attitude There was a time when she was all DMs and laddish talk. Now, she has grown up, but still has that down-to-earth quality we like to think is essentially British. We can’t prove this, but she lives in NY rather than on the West Coast, and she doesn’t appear to have airs. The fact that she occupies a place somewhere between Hollywood royalty and Emma Thompson makes her pitch-perfect for the current climate.

The story We’re so over addiction, and KW is as normal as you get — not even an estranged father in the background, or a brother writing a tell-all bio. She’s happily married to Sam Mendes and it feels like a solid, mutually rewarding match (which is also something we’re craving, as opposed to those ring-off, ring-on relationships).

The relate factor She’s a girl’s girl. We guessed this, and then, at a screening of The Reader, Marion Cotillard broke down when she was introduced to the star — and Kate couldn’t have been sweeter. I saw it all and can vouch that she has the best-friend factor. You need to be a woman who likes women in 2009, more than ever.

The career path She has been nominated for an Oscar five times, and any minute now the count will be seven — which is unprecedented for someone so young. If you don’t get her now, you will by February.

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