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White Oleander (Full Screen) | 
 enlarge | Director: Peter Kosminsky
Actors: Michelle Pfeiffer, Renée Zellweger, Robin Wright Penn, Alison Lohman, Amy Aquino
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $2.00
You Save: $12.98 (87%)
New (41) Used (34) Collectible (2) from $2.00
Rating:  100 reviews
Sales Rank: 34856
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D23297D
ISBN: 0790772140
UPC: 085392329724
EAN: 9780790772141
ASIN: B000087F7B
Theatrical Release Date: October 11, 2002
Release Date: March 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
White Oleander chronicles the life of Astrid (Alison Lohman) a young teenager who journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) goes to prison for committing a crime of passion. Set adrift in the world Astrid struggles to become her own person while coming to terms with the challenges of living life on her own.Running Time: 110 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085392329724
Amazon.com
Fine performances and sensitive direction keep White Oleander from being a routine tearjerker. Adapted from Janet Fitch's bestseller (an Oprah's Book Club selection), this hard-edged drama boasts a reputable cast, but 23-year-old newcomer Alison Lohman steals the film from her A-list costars. As a troubled teen whose controlling mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) has been jailed for murder, Lohman is the film's heart and soul, bouncing between foster homes and rushing toward independence in a world of disappointing adults. After surviving episodic stints with a trashy born-again Christian (Robin Wright Penn), a suicidal housewife (Renée Zellweger), and a Russian immigrant (Zvetlana Efremova), she finds comfort with another outcast (Patrick Fugit), leaving behind the mothers who failed her. Making his feature directorial debut, British stage and TV veteran Peter Kosminsky creates a showcase for formidable actresses, each given moments to shine. White Oleander lacks the emotional depth of Fitch's novel, but it speaks volumes about the delicate balance of freedom and responsibility. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 95 more reviews...
 Great cast, good movie October 23, 2008
Bradley F. Smith (Miami Beach, FL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Never read the novel, but this screen version looked great to me. Much better than I expected. Excellent script, and just enough action to keep you hooked. Michelle Pfeiffer is a bit unbelievable as the evil mother, though. Nobody stays looking that good in prison.
Excellent October 1, 2008
Grinalltheway
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is likely that if you enjoyed "Speak" (2004) you will connect with "White Oleander" (2002). Both are based on novels about a traumatized teenage girl who overcomes mega-adversity; heroines who get stronger as the story progresses. 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". Both actresses are physically small and the directors in each film effectively utilize this to reinforce their vulnerability.
And each Cinematographer gets maximum effect from the camera as both films are filled with tight shots of the heroine's face. Like Stewart, Lohman gives an incredible non-verbal performance, which is nicely offset by her voice-over narration. Astrid's flat and distanced narration is often contradicted by the crushing emotional trauma she is experiencing on the screen, this dichotomy is a very effective way to illustrate her inner strength and multi- dimensionality.
"White Oleander's" strength is the way it soft-peddles the overwrought melodrama by skimping on the "Mommie Dearest" moments. 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.
Mother and daughter are both artists (although Astrid is also an observer) and the director symbolically incorporates color into the story. White is "Ingrid's color and Astrid's eventual independence occurs when she adopts black as her color late in the film. When she finally comes to terms with how much of her mother is in her, she returns to white.
The blondes are out in force as Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger play two of Astrid's foster mothers. All three supporting performances are excellent. Pfeiffer plays a humorless version of her "I Could Never Be Your Woman" mother; a mix of ascetically refined artist and imperious sociopath. Lohman has all of Pfeiffer's delicate beauty so the mother-daughter connection requires no suspension of disbelief.
Astrid's foster kid desperation for family leads her to adopt the characteristics of her caretakers, adopting religion while with born-again ex-stripper Starr (Wright Penn) and yuppie indulgence while with depressed actress Claire (Zellweger). There's a tragic quality to Claire that is unlike anything Zellweger has done before. She is the anathema of Astrid's chilly, threatened mother.
This is a film where the make-up and hair people earned their pay as Astrid's adaptation and life changes are underscored with very effective changes in her physical appearance.
As in "Speak" flashbacks are effectively used at points throughout the story.
The DVD special features commentary is about as good as it gets. The author Janet Fitch is featured along with Director Peter Kosminsky and Producer John Wells. Fitch seems quite pleased with the adaptation of her novel and seems to get it that a modest budget feature film can only focus on a portion of her original story.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Almost as Good as the Book September 30, 2008
S. Mueller (Seabrook, Md. United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I watched this movie and was impressed...It is just about as good as the book...but I was not bored with watching a movie made about the book like some. This movie was interesting in that the characters were well picked for the roles they played and so after watching this movie and thinking about it for about a week...well I had to watch it again. It is always sad to realize that life out there is not always a bed of roses. One has to mull the fact that within the system where children are placed in "foster homes"---how many come out unscathed? This was so good that I went back and re-read the novel...and to think---I almost parted with that novel...But a friend of mine said it was brilliant and so she was right...After re-reading and re-watching...A++++
Quick ship - Perfect Condition July 10, 2008
C. S. Reid (Maine)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved this movie. Michelle Pfeiffer's character was so creepy, and she WAS her character. Especially her eyes - from the long stares to the furtive glances. Even her supposed redemption was negated by her eyes - glance, stare, meaning behind the act. The story was heart-rending, and the movie is NOT for those looking for action and Rambo. This is just a well-acted and directed movie with a very real story and happy ending.
Mothers seen as protective vultures February 25, 2008
Jacques COULARDEAU (OLLIERGUES France)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A girl born without a father and raised by a mother who is a real Machiavelli of love, has one day to face her own life through hell when her mother is sent to prison for the murder of her boy friend because he had to let her go on their last meeting because he had a date, which she of course could not accept. The girl knows all the horror there can be in the kind of institution she finds herself sent to or in the foster homes she ends up in. She is nothing but a substitute for something the foster parents do not have, or the dream that her presence is going to solve their own problems, or whatever. But the worst part is of course her mother who is, from behind the wings, pulling the strings that pretend to protect the girl whereas she is only treating her as a possession that has to be defended for future use. She thus more or less creates temptation or even death in those foster homes that could have helped her daughter. When this daughter finally realizes her mother's game it is by far too late and she can only sever the tie, the connection, the link, the bond. And it is then that she builds a compensation and pretends she finally understands that her mother loved her. When it becomes obvious the mother will not be granted an appeal or win the one she may be granted and that she will not be granted parole the daughter has to more or less make it sound as if she were responsible for her mother's crime, her mother's destitution and even her mother's continuing ordeal she deserves quite a lot. Such mothers are puppeteers with their children, daughters, and they turn their daughters into musketeers who are fighting with their own reflection in a mirror, with their own shadows, when it is not with their own mothers' shadows.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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