Themes: Mothers and Daughters, Innocence Lost, Kids in Trouble
Main Cast: Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn, Renée Zellweger, Billy Connolly
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
The Oprah Book Club best-seller by Janet Fitch makes it to the big screen in this adaptation from British director Peter Kosminsky. White Oleander recounts the traumatic adolescence of Astrid Magnusson (Alison Lohman), who finds herself an orphan after her short-fused, enigmatic artist mother Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer) is carted off to prison on murder charges. Astrid first finds herself in the care of Starr (Robin Wright Penn), a garish, born-again mother of two with a gruff but sensitive boyfriend (Cole Hauser). From there, she's shunted back to a state-run facility, where she tangles with other troubled teens and finds temporary solace in the arms of Paul (Patrick Fugit), a dough-faced comic book artist with dreams of moving to New York City. Astrid then lucks into a living arrangement with a successful but insecure actress (Renee Zellweger) who offers her unconditional love. But Ingrid's stifling influence continues to haunt her daughter, whether through the occasional prison visit or via manipulative letters to Astrid's caretakers. White Oleander received a Gala North American premiere at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival before reaching multiplexes later that fall. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Review
Adapting Janet Fitch's florid, overwrought, Oprah-endorsed melodrama to the big screen poses a challenge to any director: Stay true to the source novel and make a laughable, pretentious soap opera, or break away from the book and its legions of fans and make a low-key, introspective character study. The result lies somewhere in-between, as British director Peter Kosminsky manages to do away with most of the novel's over-cooked metaphors and ham-fisted soliloquies in an attempt to get at the crux of the material, all the while retaining the ten-hanky grandstanding that made White Oleander such a big hit. The compromise mostly works, and even when it doesn't, the results are still compelling in a home-sick-watching-daytime-television sort of way. Much of the credit belongs to the two leads: newcomer Alison Lohman, who manages to keep audience sympathy admirably at bay as she tangles horns with Michelle Pfeiffer, who in turn is clearly relishing the chance to break free of her earnest-mom roles to play a venomous "Viking" of a woman again (no matter how overwritten the part may be). Melodramas like this go through Shocking Revelations and Big Speeches with all the unpredictability of a precision marksman at target practice, but Kosminsky, thanks in no small part to some judicious editing, manages to keep the film's mood pitched at a languid, ambient hum -- the emphasis here is on the "mellow" more than the drama. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Svetlana Efremova - Rena; Patrick Fugit - Paul Trout; Cole Hauser - Ray; Noah Wyle - Ron Richards; Amy Aquino - Miss Martinez; John Billingsley - Paramedic; Debra Christofferson - Marlena; Leila Kenzle - Ann Greenway; Cathy Ladman - Swap Meet Mother; James Lashly - Reverend Daniels; Stephen Root - Michael; Mark Soper - Patrick; Biff Yeager - Judge; Scott Allan Campbell - Bill Greenway; Drinda La Lumia - Patty; Liz Stauber - Carolee; Marc Donato - Davey; Kali Rocha - Susan Valeris; Taryn Manning - Nikki; Melissa McCarthy - Paramedic; Elisa Bocanegra - Girl in Fight; Melissa Marsala - Julie; Carl Sundstrom - Police Officer; Sam Catlin - Teacher; Darlene Bohorquez - Prisoner; Solomon Burke Jr. - Guard; Vernon Haas - Guard; Sean Happy - Dirt Bike Boyfriend; Myra Lamar - Detective; James W. Lee - Prison Visitor; Daniel Mandehr - Dad at Induction Area; DeVonda Manghane - Guard at X-ray Machine; Roger McIntyre - Police Officer; Dallas McKinney - Owen; Brian Mulligan - Bailiff; Allison Munn - Hannah; Jennifer Saxon - Swap Meet Daughter; Samantha Shelton - Yvonne; Kimo Wills - Comic Book Store Clerk
Credit
Tony Stabley - Art Director, Ilyse A. Reutlinger - Associate Producer, Tracy Underwood - Associate Producer, Ellen Lewis - Casting, Susie de Santo - Costume Designer, Kaaren F. Ochoa - First Assistant Director, Peter Kosminsky - Director, Chris Ridsdale - Editor, E.K. Gaylord II - Executive Producer, Patrick Markey - Executive Producer, Kristin Harms - Executive Producer, Stacy Cohen - Executive Producer, Thomas Newman - Composer (Music Score), Earl Rose - Composer (Music Score), Debra Baum - Musical Direction/Supervision, Ann Kline - Musical Direction/Supervision, Donald Graham Burt - Production Designer, Elliot Davis - Cinematographer, Hunt Lowry - Producer, John Wells - Producer, Thomas Betts - Set Designer, Bryony Foster - Set Designer, Steve Bowerman - Sound/Sound Designer, Mary Agnes Donoghue - Screenwriter, Walter Newman - Supervising Sound Editor, Janet Fitch - Book Author
Ingrid Magnussen is a free-spirited mother to 15 year-old Astrid. Ingrid falls in love with a man but ends up with a broken heart. In a crime of passion, she kills the man with the deadly poison of the white oleander. She is sentenced to life in prison - and her daughter is sent from foster home to foster home. Through each foster home, Astrid has experiences both positive and negative. Astrid and Ingrid keep in touch through mail, trying to teach other important lessons about each other. Astrid eventually forges a life separate from her mother.
Astrid is 15 in the film unlike 12 in the novel in the beginning.
Astrid is not as promiscuous as she is in the novel & does not have an affair with Starr's boyfriend Ray. However Starr continues to believe they are having an affair & shoots her in a drunken rage still as in the novel.
The characters of the Turlock's, Amelia, & Olivia are eiliminated
Astrid meets Paul Trout right after arrving at McKinney Hall unlike in the novel
Ingrid is much kinder,loving & more attentive to Astrid than in the novel but still neglects parent related activities like parent-teacher night
The biggest difference is in the novel Ingrid is released & in the movie she is not. Ingrid offers Astrid money to lie in court but Astrid refuses after Ingrid tells her a story about how she left her with a caretaker for 1 year when she was a baby.
Astrid lives with Paul in an apartment in New York (Berlin in the novel). At the film's end Astrid voices over a story about people wanting to buy her suitcases she has made into art detailing her life' journey & she reads a story of the LA Times with her mother in it featuring a series of prison collages. She acknowledges her mother loves her also after Ingrid refused to let Astrid testify in appeals trial that might have freed her.
Production
Barbra Streisand was offered the chance to direct this film, as well as play the role of Ingrid Magnussen, but she turned it down because she was afraid that the time she had to commit to this film would be overwhelming.[1]
