White Oleander: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Peter Kosminsky's "White Oleander," a mother-daughter soap opera based on Janet Fitch's Oprah-backed best-seller, is a melodramatic potboiler, for sure, but it’s a harrowing, extremely well-acted potboiler, a movie about the ramifications of emotional abuse that resonates with moments of truth as it follows one girl’s descent into hell.

The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Ingrid, an artist-cum-poisonous sociopath whose physical beauty belies a cruel spirit and an ugly heart, and Alison Lohman as her teen-age daughter Astrid, a budding artist whose mother happens to be Mommy Dearest for the new millennium.

For Astrid, life strikes a sour note and sustains it when the unstable Ingrid murders her inattentive boyfriend, Barry (Billy Connolly), and is sent to prison. Over the next several years, Astrid is bounced between foster homes and foster moms while Ingrid, who consistently looks too fresh and pretty for someone serving 35 to life, maintains a fierce emotional grip because she’s either unwilling or unable to let go.

Indeed, each communication and visit with her daughter is seen by Ingrid as an opportunity to play with her mind, undermining what little happiness Astrid has managed to achieve, which isn’t much.

As the film unwinds, Kosminsky follows Astrid’s tumultuous relationships with three foster mothers, including Robin Wright Penn as the sluttish, gun-wielding, born-again Christian, Starr; Renee Zellweger as a third-rate actress with a neglectful husband (Noah Wylie); and Svetlana Efremova as a Russian temptress with a hive of other foster girls who shuck discount clothing at outdoor shopping bazaars.

In their own way, all of the performances are riveting even if (or especially since, depending on how you look at it) some tip the balance into camp, as does Penn’s. Still, in her defense, Penn was handed a role that asked her to tear up the scenery while working her way through a carton of cigarettes and an endless parade of red stilettos. She pulls it off memorably, as does Pfeiffer, who’s so good as the conniving Ingrid, she should consider joining Robin Williams in recharging her career by finding roles that exploit her dark side.

The standout here is Lohman, whose strong performance grounds the movie even as its seams threaten to burst. As the film opens, Astrid states that she doesn’t "know how to express how being with someone so dangerous was the last time I felt safe." As the film ends, Kosminsky allows her to express those feelings in a way that suggests even the most unwanted of maternal ties run deep.

Grade: B+