White Oleander

[StevePulaski]

White Oleander (2002)
Directed by: Peter Kosminsky

Alison Lohman and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Rating: ★★½

NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Diane R. for "Steve Pulaski Sees It," a yearly event where I take recommendations from readers.

Adapted from Janet Finch's novel from 1999 — which went on to be a national bestseller after being selected for Oprah's Book Club — White Oleander is the kind of material I imagine loans itself to a compelling and emotional read. Like nearly any book, it probably could've made for a near-perfect film, but director Peter Kosminsky and screenwriter Mary Agnes Donoghue (Beaches) treat this adaptation with kid gloves, embellishing the gloss and beauty of the performers and scenery that almost, if for a fleeting second, make you wish if you were ever forsaken the hell of being transported from home-to-home like cattle, you'd have an experience similar to Astrid Magnussen's. At times, the beautification of Astrid's life makes it look like a coming-of-age journey for the ages.

Played by Alison Lohman, 15-year-old Astrid grows up with her mother Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer) and no father. Ingrid is an artist; the self-centered kind who you believe from the first frame had a child because it was an attractive idea in the moment but lacked any foresight for long-term stability. Ingrid acts on her own desires, and sees nothing wrong with missing important events like parents night at Astrid's school. "What can they tell me about you that I don't already know?," Ingrid asks her.

Astrid's life is catapulted into turmoil when an enraged Ingrid murders her lover, Barry (Billy Connolly in a role so brief it might as well not even exist), one evening after learning he has other women on the side in a baffling turn of events. She's sent to a maximum-security prison to do 35-to-life, making Astrid another foster child. Her first foster mother is Starr (Robin Wright Penn), a Bible-thumping Christian who was once an alcoholic stripper. Evidently, Starr changed everything but her attitude as she houses numerous children she doesn't appear to mother, and once she's convinced Astrid is out to steal her lover, she reacts the way only unstable movie characters do and shoots Astrid in the shoulder — an instance addressed and passed over so quickly it's practically a narrative injustice.

Astrid's best experience comes when she moves in with Claire (Renée Zellweger), an insecure sometimes-actress who spends most of her days alone in her lavish California home seeing as her husband (Noah Wyle) is a traveling director. Claire suspects her husband is having an affair — what men who are persistently "away for business" are expected to do in their free-time — but she doesn't have the courage to call him out. Astrid and Claire bond rather charmingly, spending their days eating Chinese food and discussing art. Periodically, Astrid pays visits to her mother in prison, where we get more of a glimpse of the caustic personality with which she's raised her daughter. Claire comes to visit and leaves in tears after Ingrid fuels her suspicions of her husband's infidelity. It's during these moments where Astrid comes to see her mother's true colors in a different light after having experienced the nurturing hand of Claire. "How can you stand to live with poor Claire?," Astrid's mom asks her. "I would rather see you in the worst kind of foster hell than to live with that woman."

The third home is the most peculiar. After Claire, Astrid lands back into foster care following events I won't reveal. She's faced with a promising husband and wife as her next potential parents, but instead impulsively decides she wants to live with Rena (Svetlana Efremova) before even knowing her name. Rena is a Russian capitalist, who ostensibly found her way to America because it's a country that permits you to sell dresses and jewelry on your front lawn and keep all the profits. Astrid is convinced into selling some of her possessions to make money, and later dyes her hair and changes her outfit to look more like a rebellious teenager tailored to piss off her mother. Of all the foster homes, Rena's is the most underdeveloped, and exists only to provide a stark contrast to the gentleness that defined Astrid's time with Claire.

The significance of the title is perhaps an apt metaphor for Astrid's mother. Like an oleander, she's beautiful but toxic, with the ability to do significant damage. The moral of the film seems to suggest that although her teenage years were tumultuous, the experiences were vital in getting Astrid out of a poisonous household in order to see just how insulated her previous life was.

White Oleander is never boring. Frankly, it's entertaining, and its shifty settings keep it interesting while commendable performances make it an esteemed presentation. However, the same presentation is akin to a soap opera, which does the film a disservice by beautifying trauma. The gauzy decor, sun-soaked California colors, and the way Kosminsky's camera lovingly lingers on the attractiveness of the leading women all make for a film that's ultimately too pretty to be impacting. The sleek visuals do their best to put makeup on what is ultimately a grim, unsavory situation for our main character.

Astrid's various foster mothers come and go in what amounts to an episodic chronology, where characters are eccentric enough that they feel like caricatures. I wouldn't believe for a second any one of these women would be qualified as foster mothers, but in the world of movies, they make the grade. The most remarkable aspect is how Thomas Newman's score doesn't overplay the obviously maudlin moments the way it so easily could.

It stands to reason why this story became one of many staples of Oprah's Book Club in the early aughts: it's discomforting enough to unnerve its target audience but just warm enough not to upset them too deeply.

Starring: Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfieffer, Renée Zellweger, Patrick Fugit, Robin Wright Penn, Svetlana Efremova, Cole Hauser, Amy Aquino, and Noah Wyle. Directed by: Peter Kosminsky.