White Oleander (2002)

Review by All Movie Guide
Adapting Janet Fitch's florid, overwrought, Oprah-endorsed melodrama to the big screen poses a challenge to any director: Stay true to the source novel and make a laughable, pretentious soap opera, or break away from the book and its legions of fans and make a low-key, introspective character study. The result lies somewhere in-between, as British director Peter Kosminsky manages to do away with most of the novel's over-cooked metaphors and ham-fisted soliloquies in an attempt to get at the crux of the material, all the while retaining the ten-hanky grandstanding that made White Oleander such a big hit. The compromise mostly works, and even when it doesn't, the results are still compelling in a home-sick-watching-daytime-television sort of way. Much of the credit belongs to the two leads: newcomer Alison Lohman, who manages to keep audience sympathy admirably at bay as she tangles horns with Michelle Pfeiffer, who in turn is clearly relishing the chance to break free of her earnest-mom roles to play a venomous "Viking" of a woman again (no matter how overwritten the part may be). Melodramas like this go through Shocking Revelations and Big Speeches with all the unpredictability of a precision marksman at target practice, but Kosminsky, thanks in no small part to some judicious editing, manages to keep the film's mood pitched at a languid, ambient hum -- the emphasis here is on the "mellow" more than the drama. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide