Teen Trauma:White Oleander; Gun Culture: Bowling for Columbine
By Jan Aaron

Adapted from Janet Fitch’s best selling novel, White Oleander traces the chaotic life of a mid-teen, Astrid Magnussen, who is placed in a series of foster homes, when her artist-mother, Ingrid, is sentenced to prison for killing her latest boyfriend. Fans of the book will be surprised to see how well Mary Agnes Donoghue’s script adaptation brings it to the screen. It’s no big jolt that in the movie Ingrid is an artist instead of a poet. For educators, both novel and film can prompt classroom discussion about parental bonds and finding your own way.

Director Peter Kosminsky (TV film Warriors) beautifully captures the rich and turbulent mother-daughter conflict between Astrid, brilliantly played by newcomer Alison Lohman, and the domineering Ingrid, an exceptional Michelle Pfeiffer. In the quick-paced opening scenes, Ingrid goes from passing her Viking theory of life to her daughter to being carted off to jail. From then on they are tied together through Astrid’s visits to her mother in prison and the letters Ingrid sends out.

As the years pass, Astrid, who narrates the story, lives in a series of foster homes which change her from pampered young woman to street-wise punk who collects and resells old clothes. The most moving foster mom at the Malibu home of an unemployed actor, Claire (Renee Zellweger) clings to Astrid as her marriage fails.

Astrid also meets a young comic book artist Paul (Patrick Fugit, Almost Famous) in a county facility where they are being held between homes. Their bond becomes a relationship that turns into a way out of a degrading life. In the end, however, the bruised but resilient Astrid emerges as a talented conceptual artist in her own right.

Essential film going also is Bowling for Columbine, an often-successful attempt by Michael Moore (Roger & Me) to examine America’s gun culture. Using the Columbine teen shooting spree as a focal point, Moore ranges far and wide–sometimes putting a bit too much of his POV in the picture. (Oleander, PG-13, distributed by Warner Brothers; Bowling, documentary, by United Artists. For film locales and showtimes, call 777-FILM).#