Alison Lohman has just got to be one of the prettiest girls on film EVER! Okay, so during WHITE OLEANDER she wore a wig, but that's the way she looks anyway. 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. It is therefore quite surprising to see her getting her name shown after the newcomer in the credits. But you're hardly watching before you realize that Alison is some child genius. Okay, then the second surprise, and this one, I think my jaw dropped open when I researched her on Wikipedia... Alison is much older than she appears to be. I mean, she is young, but as Astrid, she looks, well, 14, 16 tops.My regards to the casting department on excellent work with the two main characters. Michelle is superb, Alison is wonderful.The movie itself? Has got to be the worst failure at filming a murder mystery EVER! This has got to be the weakest murder ever committed to film! No wonder there are people in the audience who believe Ingrid is innocent. So, Ingrid seemingly placed some oleanders in a glass of milk, and the police arrested her IMMEDIATELY...? Highly unlikely. .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...! Only kidding, great work, Robin!As for Renée, truth and fiction seemed like the same thing. She was cut out for the part. Not meant as a compliment. Check her out in LOVE AND A .45, she shouldn't have gone the Bridget Jones route...After seeing this movie last week, I have since began negotiating to buy more of her titles, starting With WHERE THE TRUTH LIES.

Teenager Astrid Magnussen is having a bad hair day. Make that a bad hair life. Her father abandoned the family when she was a baby. Her mother Ingrid is serving 35 years to life in jail for murdering her boyfriend after discovering he was cheating on her. Her first foster mother, Starr, shot and wounded her when she began to suspect that Astrid had lustful designs on her live-in lover. Her second foster mother, Claire, committed suicide after the breakdown of her marriage. Her third, a Russian immigrant, exploits her foster children as cheap labour in her business. In between fosterings Astrid lives in a grim orphanage which seems rather less comfortable and welcoming than the prison in which her mother is incarcerated.If there were a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictitious Characters the makers of this film would be in big trouble indeed, although they would not be the only ones. I have never read the original novel by Janet Fitch, but I understand that in it Astrid is subjected to even greater sufferings which a merciful scriptwriter decided to spare her here.Any synopsis of its plot would make "White Oleander" seem like the cinematic of all those "tragic life stories" (aka "misery porn") which were filling our bookshops during the early 2000s, with the difference that the story told in this film is purely fictional, whereas misery porn generally is (or purports to be) based upon real-life events. Yet there is more to it than that; the film is skilfully directed by Peter Kosminsky and features some fine performances from a number of actresses. (The male members of the cast are generally less prominent).Michelle Pfeiffer's Ingrid is clearly intelligent, but also arrogant and totally lacking in moral insight, showing no remorse for her crime. Like Belloc's Godolphin Horne she "holds the human race in scorn"; she dismisses the working class as "trailer trash", and has a fixed prejudice against religion, especially Christianity, a prejudice which she tries to justify in the name of reason but which owes more to intellectual pride. She is horrified to see Astrid wearing a cross given to her by Starr, a former stripper turned born-again Christian, although in this case she might have some justification for her suspicion of Christianity. Starr (played in another fine performance by Robin Wright Penn) is the sort of born-again hypocrite whose faith does not prevent her from carrying on an adulterous relationship with a man still legally married to someone else and for whom accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour is not necessarily incompatible with trying to shoot your foster daughter.This is one of the finest performances I have seen Pfeiffer give. (She also looks stunning, far younger than her age of 44). Ingrid is a repellent individual, and yet Pfeiffer makes us realise that she is nevertheless a human being, particularly towards the end when her more vulnerable side becomes apparent. Pfeiffer's Ingrid is complemented by Alison Lohman's Astrid. Ingrid's main aim is to turn her into a younger version of herself, and Astrid's is to resist this process and to establish herself as her own person.The story is set in Southern California, and this is reflected in the brilliant light and bright primary colours which predominate in the film. Kosminsky makes particular use of the colour blue, and most scenes, especially those featuring Ingrid, have at least one prominent bright blue object.The film's main weakness is a lack of plausibility as far as the storyline is concerned, which is why I am unable to give it a higher mark. Any one of the mishaps which befall Astrid might be plausible in itself. That so many mishaps could have happened to a 15-year-old girl, at least without destroying her psychologically, starts to strain credibility. Some of the characters did not seem very credible either, especially Claire, although I felt this was less the fault of Renée Zellweger than of the script, which never told us much about Claire's background or enabled us to understand her frailties. I also wondered just how realistic was the portrayal of California's social services system. If Astrid's experiences are anything to go by, it would appear that the chief requirement for foster parents in the Golden State is to be totally unsuited to be a foster parent. The acting and the direction of the film are good, but the plot could have been better. 6/10

There is a big difference between the book and the movie, but I think the movie covers most of the important parts in the time frame that they have. The actresses chosen for this movie were perfect, even though the character of Claire is different in the book in terms of looks. I think the writers chose the right parts of the book to tell. I do wish that the movie portrayed the mindset of each character better, especially Astrid. For instance, Uncle Ray is much younger and attractive in the movie than he is in the book. What the movie doesn't show enough is how Astrid is interested in much older men who are actually in their 40's. Nevertheless, this is a must watch movie. It shows a lot about women and their emotions.

White Oleander (2002)The harrowing journey of a teenage girl through a series of foster parent and foster home situations because her mother went to jail for murder. On the surface this is about survival in a hostile world, and one layer down it's about getting to know her mother and what a mother's love is all about. But even deeper we get to know what this adolescent girl is all about, with growing complexity, and growing interest and concern.There are two keys here, the layered and ever changing story, based on the bestseller by the same name, and the lead actress, Alison Lohman. 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). Lohman makes her character really sympathetic but in a hardened way, never cloying, and never clichéd.But she has fabulous support along the way. 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. That's a weirdly amazing cast. And well constructed, very serious. In all, the editing is usually pretty fast, the filming is visually smart without being overly seductive, and the writing (and screen writing) is sharp as an Xacto knife. All the while, watching and being impressed, you will also realize it's "just a movie." You can feel the presence of the film world, a glitzing up of characters, an unavoidable pandering to clichés to make it look and feel pretty. I don't mean that a hardhitting drama about the tragedy of a young girl's life has to be gritty and truthful and meaningful--but that was a possibility. And you can see how this film might have been something intensely moving without resorting to filmmaking tearjerker tricks (like the repeated glances through the windows near the end) or a bizarre deal-making finale.Reservations aside, I found myself more absorbed with each scene. A nice surprise.