White Oleander is the latest screen adaptation of a novel anointed by Oprah's Book Club.  Since Oprah's favorite books are generally ignored en masse once they hit the multiplex, I'm not sure why Hollywood continues to crank them out.  Oleander isn't something I'd strongly recommend to anyone, but by comparison, it seems like an awardworthy epic next to a movie like Where the Heart Is. Still, the reason it succeeds has little to do with the story – it's all about the acting, girlfriend.

The current record-holder for MPAA warning length, Oleander is about a 15-year-old girl named Astrid Magnussen (newcomer Alison Lohman) whose life plays out like something you'd witness on a daytime talk show.  Instead of having toothless morons scream, "Girl, you need to show yo' mama some respeck!," Oleander takes the higher road in its portrayal of Astrid, the only child of a respected artist named Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer, I Am Sam), who, shortly after the film opens, is tried and convicted of killing her boyfriend (Billy Connolly, Still Crazy).  Foregoing a lengthy trial scene, we see only the sentencing (she gets 35 years), and before we know it, poor little Astrid is being whisked off to the first of what will be a slew of temporary homes in the Los Angeles area.

First stop is the pink nightmare that is the home of Starr (Robin Wright Penn, The Pledge), a born-again former stripper who must have landed in Southern California via the trashiest Florida trailer parks.  Trouble ensues, and Astrid is shipped off to an institution, then to the home of an infertile Hollywood couple (Renée Zellweger and Noah Wyle), and, finally, into the clutches of a Russian-immigrant-turned-whacked-out-capitalist (Svetlana Efremova).  Attaching herself to anyone who gives her the slightest bit of attention, Astrid has a different persona each time she visits her mother in jail.  This is an awful development for the free-spirited Ingrid, who had previously tried to instill in Astrid her own self-righteous version of right and wrong.

Like the eponymous flower, Pfeiffer's Ingrid is beautiful and deadly, generating enough poison to be remembered at Oscar time.  Her prison scenes with Astrid are Oleander's highlights, even though they usually leave our protagonist devastated after each visit.  Everything else is very episodic and doesn't work quite as well storywise, despite fine performances from everyone.  If you think about it, Oleander is kind of an actresses' dream film.  Every character besides Astrid is terribly flawed – beyond the point of being saved by Oprah's Dr. Phil, even – that we end up not caring a lick about them.  And that just makes us root even harder for Astrid.

The underlying message seems to be that men are just no damn good.  Trust 'em, and they'll fuck around behind your back.  Kill 'em, and they'll get you imprisoned. Astrid doesn't really find her way until she's placed in a foster home sans father figure.  She is keenly aware that the mere presence of men is enough to ruin everything (check out her face when Noah Wyle shows up).  Could her experience really have been that bad, or is this just how she remembered it (Astrid narrates, implying everything we see has happened in the past)? Even her relationship with Paul (Patrick Fugit, Almost Famous), a fellow foster kid with artistic ambitions, is messed up because he's too much like she is, and Astrid believes she's damaged goods.  And if we learn anything else in addition to the Men Are Bad theme, it's that California needs to crack down on their foster-parent approval process.

Oleander is directed by Peter Kosminsky, who, in addition to helming a lot of British documentaries, made a great version of Wuthering Heights with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in 1992.  His camerawork, along with cinematographer Elliot Davis (I Am Sam), adds a unique perspective to the film that makes it more like an arthouse offering than a Hollywood blockbuster.  Also helping that cause is quirky editing (Chris Risdale) and a very likable score (Thomas Newman, the Six Feet Under theme guy) full of quiet segues that wouldn't seem out of place on the Traffic soundtrack, or a NIN record.

1:49 -

for mature thematic elements concerning dysfunctional relationships, drug content, language, sexuality and violence