White Oleander (2002)

Great cast, good movie

Never read the novel, but this screen version looked great to me. Much better than I expected. Excellent script, and just enough action to keep you hooked. Michelle Pfeiffer is a bit unbelievable as the evil mother, though. Nobody stays looking that good in prison. October 23, 2008

Excellent

It is likely that if you enjoyed "Speak" (2004) you will connect with "White Oleander" (2002). Both are based on novels about a traumatized teenage girl who overcomes mega-adversity; heroines who get stronger as the story progresses. Both are told entirely from the point-of- view of this central character; Melinda (Kristen Stewart) in "Speak" and Astrid (Alison Lohman) in "White Oleander". Both actresses are physically small and the directors in each film effectively utilize this to reinforce their vulnerability.

And each Cinematographer gets maximum effect from the camera as both films are filled with tight shots of the heroine's face. Like Stewart, Lohman gives an incredible non-verbal performance, which is nicely offset by her voice-over narration. Astrid's flat and distanced narration is often contradicted by the crushing emotional trauma she is experiencing on the screen, this dichotomy is a very effective way to illustrate her inner strength and multi- dimensionality.

"White Oleander's" strength is the way it soft-peddles the overwrought melodrama by skimping on the "Mommie Dearest" moments. Instead of a focus on the relationship between an imprisoned mother (Ingrid-played Michelle Pfeiffer) and her abandoned daughter, the film is about Astrid's journeys; her physical travels around the Los Angeles area to different foster care situations and her internal journey from dependency to independence.

Mother and daughter are both artists (although Astrid is also an observer) and the director symbolically incorporates color into the story. White is "Ingrid's color and Astrid's eventual independence occurs when she adopts black as her color late in the film. When she finally comes to terms with how much of her mother is in her, she returns to white.

The blondes are out in force as Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger play two of Astrid's foster mothers. All three supporting performances are excellent. Pfeiffer plays a humorless version of her "I Could Never Be Your Woman" mother; a mix of ascetically refined artist and imperious sociopath. Lohman has all of Pfeiffer's delicate beauty so the mother-daughter connection requires no suspension of disbelief.

Astrid's foster kid desperation for family leads her to adopt the characteristics of her caretakers, adopting religion while with born-again ex-stripper Starr (Wright Penn) and yuppie indulgence while with depressed actress Claire (Zellweger). There's a tragic quality to Claire that is unlike anything Zellweger has done before. She is the anathema of Astrid's chilly, threatened mother.

This is a film where the make-up and hair people earned their pay as Astrid's adaptation and life changes are underscored with very effective changes in her physical appearance.
As in "Speak" flashbacks are effectively used at points throughout the story.

The DVD special features commentary is about as good as it gets. The author Janet Fitch is featured along with Director Peter Kosminsky and Producer John Wells. Fitch seems quite pleased with the adaptation of her novel and seems to get it that a modest budget feature film can only focus on a portion of her original story.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child. October 1, 2008

Almost as Good as the Book

I watched this movie and was impressed...It is just about as good as the book...but I was not bored with watching a movie made about the book like some. This movie was interesting in that the characters were well picked for the roles they played and so after watching this movie and thinking about it for about a week...well I had to watch it again. It is always sad to realize that life out there is not always a bed of roses. One has to mull the fact that within the system where children are placed in "foster homes"---how many come out unscathed? This was so good that I went back and re-read the novel...and to think---I almost parted with that novel...But a friend of mine said it was brilliant and so she was right...After re-reading and re-watching...A++++ September 30, 2008

Quick ship - Perfect Condition

I loved this movie. Michelle Pfeiffer's character was so creepy, and she WAS her character. Especially her eyes - from the long stares to the furtive glances. Even her supposed redemption was negated by her eyes - glance, stare, meaning behind the act. The story was heart-rending, and the movie is NOT for those looking for action and Rambo. This is just a well-acted and directed movie with a very real story and happy ending. July 10, 2008

Mothers seen as protective vultures

A girl born without a father and raised by a mother who is a real Machiavelli of love, has one day to face her own life through hell when her mother is sent to prison for the murder of her boy friend because he had to let her go on their last meeting because he had a date, which she of course could not accept. The girl knows all the horror there can be in the kind of institution she finds herself sent to or in the foster homes she ends up in. She is nothing but a substitute for something the foster parents do not have, or the dream that her presence is going to solve their own problems, or whatever. But the worst part is of course her mother who is, from behind the wings, pulling the strings that pretend to protect the girl whereas she is only treating her as a possession that has to be defended for future use. She thus more or less creates temptation or even death in those foster homes that could have helped her daughter. When this daughter finally realizes her mother's game it is by far too late and she can only sever the tie, the connection, the link, the bond. And it is then that she builds a compensation and pretends she finally understands that her mother loved her. When it becomes obvious the mother will not be granted an appeal or win the one she may be granted and that she will not be granted parole the daughter has to more or less make it sound as if she were responsible for her mother's crime, her mother's destitution and even her mother's continuing ordeal she deserves quite a lot. Such mothers are puppeteers with their children, daughters, and they turn their daughters into musketeers who are fighting with their own reflection in a mirror, with their own shadows, when it is not with their own mothers' shadows.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
February 25, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...