White Oleander Review
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, Rovi
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