White Oleander [HD]

Triumph
This is one of very few examples of how a great book can be made into an equally good movie.

Screenplay is brilliant, story line is very closely kept with the book, which is always a must contrary to popular beliefs. Directing is excellent, casting even better. Watching these actors playing these characters almost made me forget that I was watching the movie and not the real life. Watching Astrid shad her innocence and step into womanhood through hardship and deception was as magnificent to watch as it was painful. And should I even speak of Michelle Pfeifer? She has an Oscar written all over her for that performance. Her glares alone deserve a recognition. Lets not forget excellent performances by Renee Zelwegger and Robin Wright Penn.

For all those (man) who think this is a chick flick (much like I thought before I watched it) it is not. This is a story of love, deception, transformation and letting go. A story about how all of us have to find our own path in life regardless...

Memorable Performances in a Highly Dramatized Movie
White Oleander, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman, is the movie based on the book by Janet Fitch. Viewers of the Oprah Winfrey daytime television show and readers will recall that this book was one of Oprah�s book club selections. Now this compelling and disturbing book has been brought to the silver screen in what many viewers will agree was an intriguing and well-crafted movie. And rarely, if ever in my opinion, has a movie been so finely done or as faithful to the book as was done in this movie. In addition the cast was well chosen and the performances are creatively superb, handling a most difficult subject.

Michelle Pfeiffer, in the lead role, plays Ingrid Magnusson, a single parent and artist who is raising her adolescent daughter Astrid played by Alison Lohman. Ingrid is an incredibly selfish woman with a Bohemian lifestyle who treats Astrid more like a friend than her child. While Ingrid�s life is dictated by her passions and whims, Astrid...

Good and hard
This was an intense, powerful extraordinarily well done movie that is so good it hurts. Think Sophie's choice. It's about a teen-aged daughter whose mother gets herself sent to jail for a long time, leaving the daughter to drift from foster home to foster home. We see a sweet kid exposed to situations that turn her hard, angry, jaded. And while we watch this we know that this happens every day, every minute to kids all over the world, millions of them.

Michelle Pfeifer is amazing as the self absorbed, possibly borderline possibly sociopathic mother who tries to manipulate her daughter remotely, from jail. Alison Lohman plays the teenage daughter. She does a great job and shows terrific promise as a versatile actor. With her next film, Matchstick men, directed by Ridley Scott, she's off to a great start, with a good half dozen films already under her belt.

This is a great movie, but don't expect to walk out feeling uplifted. Try feeling like you've been hit in the stomach. Still,...

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