White Oleander (Film)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! White Oleander (2002) is an American motion picture drama directed by Peter Kosminsky. The cast features Alison Lohman in the central role of Astrid Magnussen, and Michelle Pfeiffer as her temperamental mother Ingrid, alongside Robin Wright Penn, Rene Zellweger, Billy Connolly and Patrick Fugit in supporting roles. The screenplay was adapted from the novel of the same name by Janet Fitch, which was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1999. The narrator, Astrid Magnussen (Alison Lohman), is the fifteen-year-old daughter of a free-spirited artist, Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer). Her father having left before she was old enough to remember him, Astrid depends heavily upon the maternal care of her passionate, but largely self-centered mother. Ingrid's current relationship, with a vulgar man named Barry (Billy Connolly), comes to an end when he is discovered to be a womanizer, and her emotional response leads her to murder him using poison (white oleander). Ingrid is arrested and sentenced to life in prison, leaving Astrid without parents and in need of foster care.