White Oleander

Plot synopsis:
15 year-old Astrid Magnussen (Alison Lohman) is living in Los Angeles with her mother, the free-spirited artist Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer). Since her father left before she was old enough to remember him, Astrid depends heavily upon the care of her passionate but largely self-centered mother.
Ingrid's current relationship with a writer named Barry (Billy Connolly) ends when she discovers he is cheating on her with younger women. Ingrid murders him with a poison made from white oleander. Ingrid is arrested and sentenced to life in prison, leaving Astrid under the care of the state of California.
Astrid is sent to live with foster mother Starr Thomas (Robin Wright), a former stripper who is a recovering alcoholic and born-again Christian. They initially interact well, with Astrid being baptised into Starr's church. However, Ingrid is appalled at her conversion and subtly manipulates Astrid against her foster family. Astrid begins an affair with Starr's live in boyfriend Ray (Cole Hauser), which drives Starr into drinking again. After a loud argument with him, she runs into Astrid's room in a drunken rage and shoots her in the shoulder. The other children beg her not to tell who shot her, so Astrid pretends she has no clue.
Astrid spends some time recovering in a hospital before being moved to a violent group foster home. After fighting with some girls, she strikes up a friendship with fellow artist Paul Trout (Patrick Fugit).
Eventually, Astrid is placed in the care of Claire Richards (Renée Zellweger), a former actress, and her producer husband Mark (Noah Wyle). Claire is a sweet, affectionate woman who forms a close bond with Astrid. One day, Astrid comes home to find a letter from her mother to Claire. She confronts Claire only to find out that it has been going on for a while and that they plan on meeting. Claire accompanies Astrid on a visit to Ingrid in prison. The jealous Ingrid exploits Claire's low self-esteem and suspicions over Mark's fidelity, much to Astrid's outrage. During a bad argument with Mark, she agrees to send Astrid back to try and save her marriage. After a tender conversation where they cuddled in bed together, Claire unexpectedly commits suicide, devastating Astrid.
Astrid visits her mother to inform her of Claire's death, that she was returned to MAC and that she will never visit her again. Paul is still there and tells her that when he turns 18 that weekend he will move to New York. He asks Astrid to accompany him but she refuses.
Astrid passes up better foster parent candidates and chooses to live with a Russian immigrant, Rena (Svetlana Efremova), who treats her foster children as cheap laborers for her swap meet business. During her time with Rena, she becomes colder and colder with her appearance matching her insides. She is approached by her mother's attorney (Kali Rocha), a woman taken in by her mother's charm. She offers Astrid anything she wants in exchange for lying for her mother in court since her mother has benefactors. After refusing, Rena tells her that she's stupid to do so since a car and art school cost money. She then offers her to be her partner in their business since she has nowhere better to go. When Astrid refuses, Rena tells her to use her mother like her mother wants to use her.
Astrid visits her mother, astonishing her with her appearance. She is no longer blond, but has black hair, harsh makeup and dark clothes. Astrid realizes Rena was right and demands answers about her past in exchange for testifying that she killed Barry in self defense. Astrid hammers her with questions about Barry, her father, Claire and who Annie was. Ingrid admits to leaving her with Annie for around a year and that her father came looking for her when she was 8, but Ingrid turned him away for leaving them 7 years before. Ingrid claims she would take all she has done back, but when Astrid begs her to not make her testify, she refuses.
Astrid goes to a comic book shop looking for letters from Paul. He soon shows up by bus in Los Angeles with her waiting for him. He accompanies her to her mother's trial as she waits to testify. The courtroom lets out and a curious Astrid goes to see what is going on. She questions her mother's attorney and finds out that she was instructed her to leave her alone. Her mother spots her in the courtroom and they stare at one another as she is led away. Gutted, Astrid stares out the window as her mother is taken back to the bus to return to prison. Paul asks what happened and she exhales that her mother let her go.
Two years later, a once again blond Astrid has created a life in New York City with Paul. She is last seen tending to her art; suitcases depicting all she has been through. As she passes them, she closes each, stating she will never visit the horrors they contain again.

Tags: cruelty, murder, violence, flashback, melodrama, romantic

Review:
Ingrid Magnussen (Michelle Pfeiffer) puts her daughter, Astrid (Alison Lohman), in the center of her artwork but pushes her to the perimeter of her reality.
Janet Fitch won rave reviews in 2000 for this novel; screenwriter Mary Agnes Donoghue did not match Fitch's brilliance, but turned a weighty narrative-both in terms of content and size-into an admirable film blueprint.Director Peter Kosminsky and accomplished actresses Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn, Renée Zellweger, and newcomer Lohman used this blueprint to create a gripping film that both readers and nonreaders of the original text will appreciate.Pfeiffer is as cool and controlling as she is stunning even in prison garb, and her mastery of personality subtleties deserves acclaim.
Ingrid Magnussen is not as perfect as she thinks, and her love is as poisonous as the white oleander.Stereotypes cheapen some of the film's richness and choices made to avoid an `R' rating sap some of its strength, but overall the film is as compelling as its sad and truthful characters..
The mother/daughter relationship her character has with Alison's is probably the most unconventional i've seen in a film, and that's what makes it so compelling.
;)All I really have to say is, if you want to see a movie with strong performances throughout and an excellent story that will leave you fully satisified (and personally touched) when you leave the theatre, this one's for you.
Strong performances by Lohman, Penn, Zellweger and especially Michelle Pfeiffer in a faithful adaptation of Janet Fitch's novel.
Although not a perfect film by any stretch (too many things happen without any seeming rationale behind them and some of the most important plot points are too vague), White Oleander still kept me intrigued, thanks mainly to the great performances by Pfeiffer (extraordinary in her restraint - brilliant characterization), Renee Zellweiger (achingly vulnerable here) and the extremely talented Alison Lohman (who's in nearly every scene and never hits a false note - and the fact that she sort of looks like Kirsten Dunst doesn't hurt either).
A lot of critics are saying the film is too melodramatic or not 'weepy' enough, when in fact I found the movie's greatest strength (along with the performances) to be in how UNmelodramatic it is; there's a lot of restraint taken in the scenes that could have played like an afternoon soap, and I also appreciated how the film DIDN'T wind up as a tearjerker but rather took a grittier approach by portraying Astrid as an ultimate survivor in her sad and lonely journey toward independence..
Stunning performances by Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman give the film its power.
"White Oleander," adapted from Janet Fitch's best-selling novel, is hard and edgy about the bond between single mother and daughter, letting us see the reality of a strong artistic mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) tyrannizing her gifted daughter (Alison Lohman).
After murdering her lover, mom goes to prison and daughter goes on an odyssey of self discovery in foster families, reminiscent of Burt Lancaster's episodic journey in John  Cheever's `The Swimmer.'In the first home, Robin Wright Penn's fundamental Christian presides over a frenetic household but reveals the sweet chaos of people who really love each other.
Lohman finds loving understanding with Patrick Fugit, another artist in her life, but one without an agenda.It's been a while since I've seen as good a job at depicting the effects of a strong but flawed mother on her strong but impressionable daughter.
Her psychic search for her absent father serves only to exacerbate the matter.Pfeiffer does her best work here-- beautiful even in prison, she plays an ugly soul capable of the worst emotional tyranny over her sensitive, intelligent daughter, played with heart-breaking insight by Lohman.
This was an excellent movie, very emotional and moving.Michelle Pfeiffer looks more like she belongs in a beauty contest than in prison.
Based on the same-titled novel by Janet Fitch, White Oleander tells the story of a teenage girl (Alison Lohman) struggling to survive in foster homes while her free-spirited mother (Michelle Phieffer) is in prison for having murdered her lover with the poisonous flower 'White Oleander'.
It is a complex story of the relationship between a powerless girl and a loveless mother that, in spite of its cheesy sounding premise, manages to avoid all clichéd Hallmark moments and project quite a lot of heart in doing so.White Oleander sees Alison Lohman in a superbly bruised and fragile performance as Astrid Magnussen and we follow her through her struggles, both to bond with her mother and to survive in foster cares.
All developments in her life feel natural and genuine, for example seeking the affirmation of an older man (Cole Hauser) in one of her foster homes, and putting herself into a strangely Lolita-like situation -- and this part is viciously well-handled and more effective than any other teen girl/older man jail bait situation I have ever seen.The film stars a wide variety of blondes, Michelle Phieffer, Alison Lohman, Robin Wright Penn and Renée Zellweger in different parts and they all feel appropriate.
Both Lohman and director Peter Kosminsky come out of television work, and for Lohman, this is her breakout film into Hollywood (she was in a Ridley Scott movie after this, and then played the young Jessica Lange character in the fabulous "Big Fish" a couple years later).
Two of her foster mothers are given juicy roles that are played with conviction--Robin Wright Penn as a born again floozy, Renee Zelwegger as a needy but caring actress out of work--and her biological mother is played with icy slipperiness by Michelle Pfeiffer.
However, on other fronts, he accomplishes quite a bit.When her mother goes to prison for a violent act of vengeance, young Astrid, the protagonist of "White Oleander," floats from foster family to foster family.
From her beautiful but selfish mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) to the allegedly "saved" but jealous Starr (Robin Wright) to the kindly but ill-equipped Claire (Renee Zellweger), Alison Lohman's Astrid seems to have nowhere safe to turn.The film's poster says almost all that needs to be said about the plot and theme of "White Oleander." The poster displays the faces of the four leads; all four are blonde, all four look beautiful, and each face seems to meld into the next.
While not given much screen time to flex her always exciting acting muscles, Robin Wright fleshes out her Bible-thumping mother with just enough humanity to make her believable; the character stands as a bit of a stereotype, but Wright at least gives it emotional resonance.
Astrid (Lohman) enjoys this place at first, but she and Wright Penn's boyfriend Ray (Cole Hauser; in a performance that made him a star) fall for one another.All around well worth the time and energy in seeing it, White Oleander is and remains one of my favorite films.7/10; 3 of 4 stars..
I think Lohman's acting steals the show, away from Pfeiffer, Zellweger and the rest (though everyone was good, especially Robin Wright Penn and even Rena, the foster "mom" who makes her sell her own clothes).
The performances are wonderful - Michelle Pfeiffer is just terrific as Ingrid, the artist/mother arrested for murdering her cheating boyfriend, and Robin Wright-Penn and Renee Zellweger are great as foster mothers who take in her daughter.
But the real revelation of this movie is the daughter, Astrid, played brilliantly by Alison Lohman.
This movie follows the story of Astrid Magnussen, whose life is turned upside down when her mother, Ingrid Magnussen commits murder.
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".
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.
The blondes are out in force as Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger play two of Astrid's foster mothers.
I sincerely wish she was doing roles like this in the late 80's and 90's; Michelle Pfeiffer is brilliantly cast; if you read the novel by Janet Fitch, you will agree.The story is sad, but I did not find it to be a "bitter pill" as one post indicated; it is simply about the life Astrid (Alison Lohman) has experienced with her mother.
One only needs to visit a local counseling center to see the accuracy, and brilliance of the set decoration, as well as the director's (Peter Kosminsky's) sense of despair,brilliantly translated to film, that someone like Astrid would feel.That aside, Astrid recollects many other thoughts about her mother; in the end she still loves her; life is not black and white; I will not give away any other parts of this story, you must rent or buy it; The cinematography is beautiful, and the cast is well chosen; Robin Wright-Penn is very believable; a foster mother living in a trailer-park (born-again Christian).
Renee Zellweger plays a one-time foster mom, also trapped in a world of her own.The primary role of Ingrid Magnussen, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, deserves special mention.
Ms. Pfeiffer does not play the ingénue, or innocent femme fatale; she is a strong, difficult personality, which compelled me to read the book immediately after seeing this movie.
If you listen to the narrative at the beginning of the film as Astrid describes her mother's beauty, Michelle is PERFECTLY cast.
I have never seen a movie that was as good as the book and White Oleander is no exception.
This movie would not have worked had it not been for the brilliant performances of Michelle Phiefer (haunting as the tortured artist) and newcomer Alison Lohman who is completely convincing in her role, she is definitely an actress to be watched.
Before Alison Lohman's character goes to Claire's place (Zellwegger's), she endures lots more than what the movie shows.
Claire was just a short episode in the movie too, which was wrong.On the plus side the acting was great, Pfeiffer; beautiful but with that dagger glare; Wright Penn as the white trash hypocrite; Renee as the insecure actress and Alison Lohman as a girl going through foster homes and living in her own prison.
It's how I felt about White Oleander really...It's so hard to say why I wouldn't include this in my list of favorite movies, as the acting is phenomenal (in particular by Lohman) and the pace is perfect as situations slowly unfold for young Astrid, whose dad left early and whose mother kills her boyfriend and is sentenced for 35 years to life.Astrid then has to stay in several foster homes, but this isn't going well either, as she gets involved with the 'dad' in the first family and her second foster mom commits suicide.This is where the story loses some of it's touch as Astrid is adopted for the third time by some Russian woman and she's getting really involved with the Patrick Fugit character, it just wasn't as interesting as the situations in her first foster home.
I know that most of the comments about her have been incredibly favorable, but I had a problem accepting the fact that she could even kill a fly, let alone her lover.The other two big names: Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger come out much better because they aren't treated the same way as Ms Pfeiffer.
White Oleander is the story of a teenage girl shuffled between foster homes while she attempts to understand her relationship with her mother and her own troubled past.
In a dazzling performance, Alison Lohman plays Astrid, the young girl who starts her pilgrimage through a series of foster homes when her mother is incarcerated for murdering a two-timing lover.Michelle Pfeiffer plays the troubled mother, a bohemian artist who is clearly not your typical suburban soccer mom.
The heart of the story is mother and daughter trying to reconcile their troubled relationship as Astrid moves from one foster home to another with the occasional stop at the juvenile detention facility.
From an ex-stripper (Robin Wright Penn) to a loving actress with bipolar disorder (Rene Zellwegger), Astrid's experiences in the LA foster care system open her eyes to her own inner strength - and her toxic relationship with her mother.
The PG-13 rating omits some of the more mature parts of the story, like Astrid's sexual relationship with 40-something 'Uncle' Ray, her friendship with Olivia Johnstone, an elegant black woman who moonlights as a prostitute, her foster mother Amelia, who starves her daughters, and so on.
Intense, powerful adaptation of Janet Fitch's 1999 bestseller, with a superb central performance by Alison Lohman as Astrid, daughter of the convicted artist, her mother, who claims to have raised her child as a strong, willful, independent girl--or is that just how the mother sees herself?
Lohman's fragile character amusingly assimilates her own personality to each new foster family she goes to stay with--three in three years--hardening her heart along the way, but expanding her awareness of the secret early turbulence she endured at the hands of her mother, the poisonous white oleander.
Mary Agnes Donoghue's screenplay, while patchy in spots (particularly in regards to mother Michelle Pfeiffer's legal affairs), carries us right along on Astrid's rocky path to becoming an adult, while director Peter Kosminsky handles all the changes in her young life with incredible sensitivity and deeply-felt emotion.
It is a crying shame that she dropped out of the filming scene - she has since returned, but there should have been more from her back in those days.Michelle Pfeiffer is the quintessential actress of her time, she is the very symbol of grace, elegance and female desirability amongst people with a taste for the better things in life.
.But for fans of Michelle Pfeiffer, a must, and if you want to see a pretty young girl who is, like, charmingly droolworthy, albeit in a very, very innocent way, look no further than Alison Lohman.Ooh, and I am THE South African fanatic when it comes to Robin Wright thanks to her glorious stint as Kelly Capwell in SANTA BARBARA, and you have to go and spoil my memories of her...!
Astrid Magnussen (Alison Lohman) is a sweet sensitive Californian girl with her dominating artistic unconventional mother Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer).
I enjoyed the parts played by all great actors here, as Michelle Pfeiffer, Renee Zellwegger, Anna Lohman, Tom Fugit and many did a decent and very good job, which is obvious.
Well, some may call it not a very faithful adaptation of Janet Fitch's book in the sense that it fails to capture the smoothness of the gradual change in Astrid's mind, but that's really impossible I think when you fit the story in a two-hour movie.
I think this is really superb film-making.Alison Lohman gives a wonderful breakthrough performance as Astrid.
I was blown away by this film and wondered why I haven't heard more raves about it.I particularly enjoyed Alison Lohman's performance - she was amazing, so natural and so moving.
And her transformation, the way her character developed, even the way her appearance changed as she entered each new environment was so believable.I also enjoyed Renee Zellwegger and Robin Wright Penn's performances and Patrick Fugit - not so keen on Michelle Pfeiffer, her acting style jarred, particularly against the performance of Alison, but that could be just me as I am not a big fan of hers.This movie was just great, moving and tragic but very watchable and absorbing, lacking in mawkish sentimentality.
Alison Lohman really does a marvelous job in portraying the feelings and emotions astrid is going through and michelle pfifer plays an intriguing, frightening, sharp, hauntingly stunning and beautifully disturbed character flawlessly.
Although White oleander is a beautiful movie, the book holds much more of a story and raw emotion, Overall, the movie moved me in many ways and will always be one i'd strongly recommend..
Alison Lohman is superb as Astrid, capturing the character'schameleon-like personality perfectly.
Lohman and particularly Pfeiffer give outstanding performances as an innocent daughter and hard-nosed mother who are split apart when they are both put in prison, one physically and one mentally - Pfeiffer goes to jail for murder and Lohman is stuck in foster care.It's easy to forget how great Pfeiffer is at playing bad guys (Batman Returns anyone?) but here she reminds us what made her great.Lohman is a star in the making, never resorting to OTT hysterics in what could have been a bad movie of the week about foster care.
While Michelle Pfeiffer's unsympathetic role as Astrid's Mom was dead-on, it was Renee Zellweger's portrayal of a fragile actress (also a foster Mom), who gives Astrid "the best day" of her life,  that just broke my heart.
Just like 'White Oleander' was a way better book,with lots of details, than the movie.
The story is fasinating and the actors are performing as never seen before.I never saw Alison Lohman in a movie.
She did such a great job that it wasn't until after the movie that I realized that this girl had just held her own against Michelle Pfeiffer, Renee Zellwegger and Robin Wright Penn!
White Oleander is, of course, the story of young Astrid, the daughter of the talented and wickedly beautiful artist, Ingrid.
Astrid Magnussen (Alison Lohman) is a lone teenager whose Mother (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) is convicted of murder.
It is not a bad movie by any means, but the character-driven plot that worked so well in the book feels a bit too disjointed and claustrophobic on film.6/10.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman carry this film along with the help of Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger.
Zellweger, playing the part of one of Astrid's foster mothers was also excellent.
alison lohman, michelle pfeiffer, robin wright penn, cole hauser, renee zellweger and patrick fugit are superb.
Zellweger gives a sweet and solid performance and Wright Penn is perfect as white trailer trash and play two of Estrid's foster mothers.