Rent White Oleander (2002)

Slow Poison - White Oleander review by Steve

Downbeat character study adapted from a bestseller (by Janet Finch). It's an actors film led by Alison Lohman as a teenager abandoned to the mercy of Californian foster care after her single mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) gets sent down for murder.

The events mostly reflect on the child's attempts to understand and escape from this traumatic maternal relationship. Initial disquiet at the daughter's brattish personality soon falls away under the sincerity and depth of Lohman's portrayal.

Pfeiffer is too impassive as the solipsistic, freethinking mother, but there are fertile support roles as the parental stand-ins. Renée Zellweger is best as a rich, mentally unstable trophy wife about to enter middle age with an errant, unloving husband.

This is voyeuristic exploitation; maybe even misery porn. But there's a nuanced- if sanitised- impression of growing up in care, and a nice feel for sunny, suburban LA... Plus it’s interesting to see the resilient child change within the influence of each family...