The Good: Great acting, Interesting story, Decent DVD bonus features, Realism
The Bad: Some hammy moments of performance, Unpleasant
The Basics: White Oleander realistically portrays a young woman's three years in the care of Social Services after her mother is incarcerated for murder.
I think my wife is trying to get revenge on me for our first weekend together. Well over a year ago, we met for the first time in person (having corresponded on-line for about two weeks and over the telephone for three days beyond that) and when we did, I shared some of myself with her. One of the things I thought would inform her of just who I was, was sharing one of my favorite films of all time and I brought Magnolia (reviewed here!) with me and watched it with her. Ever since, there come moments when she pulls a DVD off her shelf and she has a little smirk on her face when she says "This is one of my favorite movies, we should watch it together!" The last time that happened, she subjected me to The Pursuit Of Happyness and last night, it was White Oleander.
The reference to The Pursuit Of Happyness is not a gratuitous one: both that film and White Oleander share a common trait: they both portray an oppressive reality that is difficult to watch. It is easy to acknowledge the technical merits of both films and mood certainly is one which works in the favor of "effect" as it makes the viewer feel something. But I've gotten to a point in life where I am eager to move beyond misery and harsh reality in films I watch. Magnolia may only lead to a single smile (it's worth it in my book!) but there is an intricacy to the interplay between characters and some rise even as the others fall, so the mood is not monolithically depressing. White Oleander, on the other hand, starts murky with an undertone of annoying and descends into a harshly realistic exploration of the foster care situation in the United States today through one girl's grueling journey through the system.
Astrid is a teenager whose mother, Ingrid, is a famous artist. Self-absorbed, Ingrid brings her daughter along when she stalks her boyfriend, Barry, and when she destroys the contents of his computer's hard drive. One afternoon, Ingrid drops in on Barry (leaving Astrid in the car) and returns hours later with the arguably inappropriate observation that Barry just had sex with Ingrid, but needed her to leave so he could prepare for a date. Shortly thereafter, the police come to take Ingrid away for murder and Astrid is taken by a social worker to be placed with a foster family.
With Ingrid convicted, Astrid finds herself living with Starr and her boyfriend in the more redneck outskirts of Los Angeles. Starr, a born-again christian, is having an affair with a married man, but still convinced Astrid to get baptized. Increasingly jealous of Astrid and convinced the teenager is having sex with her boyfriend, Starr shoots the girl and Astrid moves on. Her journey is an unpleasant one, broken up by meetings with her mother who despises all Astrid's life is becoming and works to control her daughter from behind bars with barbed words. As Astrid tries to find happiness with a boy at the juvenile home and then with the lonely actress, Claire, Ingrid reaches out and corrupts those things and people Astrid becomes attached to.
White Oleander is exceptionally well-made, but over-the-top annoying. First, every line that Ingrid spouts is melodramatic philosophical claptrap which only reflects her sense of narcissism and desire to control Astrid. Sadly, even when Astrid realizes her mother is manipulating her or the people around her, she does not have the intellectual or emotional tools to combat her. As a result, living situations like Claire's home soon takes a dark turn when Astrid learns that Ingrid has been writing to Claire and Claire and Ingrid are going to meet.
My partner seems to like White Oleander for the realism of how foster care changes a person and how all of the different living situations realistically show how foster children are stuck in the already-moving lives of families they are placed with. The film does that quite well; Astrid is bounced around and the film captures well the uncertainty of finding herself in new situations that are drastically different. To wit, Astrid's arrival at the juvenile home is a quick cut from the car ride to the last moments of a violent altercation in which a fellow resident gives Astrid a bloody lip and threatens her with death.
Even after altercations like that, where Astrid rather suddenly appears to have a knife and delivers an ultimatum to her assailant while the other girl is sleeping, Astrid is remarkably likable. Her story is a compelling, if frequently heartbreaking or heartwrenching one. For all of the usual complications of growing up as a young woman, White Oleander illustrates well how a lack of a solid family unit can make that even more crushing. And the juvie hall love story with Paul, a guy whose been in the system almost his entire life, works very well and offers the film's only cathartic moment of humor (while running away from the juvenile home, Astrid, fearful, asks what will happen if they get caught leaving, and Paul notes that they'll just be sent back).
On screen, Patrick Fugit (Paul) and Alison Lohman (Astrid) have decent on-screen chemistry. Lohman plays most of the film shy and Fugit has an unassuming quality to him that makes him seem very real as a kid who's been knocked around a bit. Their scenes play well and the two have good body language that illustrates both their character's attraction to one another and their awkwardness around each other.
Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing in the best worst performance I've ever seen from her. Pfeiffer is utterly convincing as Ingrid. She stares at the viewer with an intensity in her eyes that is unsettling. She delivers each of her lines convinced of their reality and with an otherworldly quality as if she sees everything in different hues. But almost all of her lines are writer lines. I know them; I'm a writer. We slave for hours to come up with the most precise and poetic thing we can think of and it's great. But what sometimes works on the page does not work as well in reality or on film and this is perfectly encapsulated by the scene in which Ingrid is shown at work, working with her sleeves rolled up. People don't talk like Ingrid does in reality and when they do, when they are truly so pretentious and crazy, the seldom are able to function in settings like the one Ingrid is seen working in. Pfeiffer breathes life into the over-the-top lines and plays the character appropriately over-the-top, but it doesn't stop the character from seeming utterly unreal (even for one with a borderline personality disorder or just outright psychosis!).
On DVD, White Oleander has a commentary track and a handful of featurettes on how the movie was made. A novel originally, the DVD features an interview with the director on how the film was translated from book to screen. There is a commentary track, deleted scenes and the film's far-too-revealing trailers, but after the film it was hard to muster up the interest in watching them, so unsettled was I by the movie.
Ultimately, White Oleander falls squarely into a category of movies which are arguably absolutely wonderful, but so good at what they set out to do in characterizing the unpleasant realities of life that they become unwatchable. I look forward to never watching White Oleander again.
For other works featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, please be sure to check out:
What Lies Beneath
The Story Of Us
Batman Returns
8.5/10 (N)
For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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