Deadly Furniture

As I’ve been making my way through Netflix’s entire instant streaming collection, there’s been some duds--The Good German, for example. I lasted a grand total of twenty-two minutes before the pretentious boringness of chemistry-less cast and gimmicky direction finally drove me mad and to reruns of Community. (Besides, between you and me, I skipped to the ending and it is not at all like the book, which I have actually read. If you‘re going to adapt a book, at least keep the overall story and message of the book consistent.) When I scrolled past White Oleander, I had a feeling that I was in for another The Good German but for some reason, perhaps because my memory seemed to tell me that in some distant past it had actually gotten some buzz or perhaps because the lead actress (Alison Lohman) is from Matchstick Men (which I love) I watched it.

The basic plot follows Astrid, a teenage girl whose somewhat crazy mother (played by Michelle Pfeiffer in a role that, IMDB says, almost got her perhaps nominated for some sort of award) kills her boyfriend sending her to jail and her daughter (Lohman) to a series of foster homes and mother figures. There’s Robin Wright (doing a great January Jones impression), Renee Zellweger (sigh), and Woman-Who-Isn’t-On-The-Poster (but has an accent). All of this plot, however, has to be soaked in as much gray melodrama as possible. Voice-overs, flashbacks, long shots of white oleanders, symbolic lack of eggs in the fridge, you name your melodramatic pet peeve (mine happens to be the egg thing) and White Oleander has it. This gets annoying alarmingly fast to the point that, halfway through the first act, I was making up inner-head dialogue for most of the main characters. “I will hold this snow globe because it reminds me of my soon-to-be arrested mother.” “See this tear. I mean this tear. This tear will win me an Oscar nomination. Maybe.” “I don’t know who I am therefore I will stare into your EYES!”

As far as acting goes, Wright, Zellweger and Isn’t-On-The-Poster mainly just play characterizations, lacking any real-depth or screen time to make a lasting impact. Billy Connolly only made me think of “The BLACK SPOT!” and Noah Wyle’s casting was more distracting (it‘s that guy from The Librarian!) than anything else. Michelle Pfeiffer makes sure that we all know that she’s acting and acting hard. As far as Astrid, I couldn’t figure out, and I still can’t figure out, if I didn’t/don’t like her because of poor character development, because she was unlikable, or because of bad acting. In each new foster home that Astrid finds herself in, she changes her look and personality to match which is interesting and all, but in the end there is no consistent Astrid to critique or feel sympathetic towards. She picks to go to Isn’t-On-The-Poster’s trashy home instead of a nice, suburban foster home for some unexplained reason which made me finally just decide that Astrid was stupid.

I’m often to harsh on movies and make judgments too early on that then completely ruin a film’s chances to win me back. But I can’t believe that this film would be reviewed as well as it was overall, and it comes as no surprise to me that the director has done little to nothing interesting since. Don’t watch it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go check if there are eggs in the fridge. If there aren’t, that would be the Worst. Thing. Ever.