White Oleander Movie is based on the book by the same title first published in May 1999 by Jane Fitch.
The movie, as depicted by Astrid, starts at the end as evidenced by the opening narration “Everybody asks why I started at the end and worked back to the beginning. The reason is simple; I couldn’t understand the beginning until I reach the end. There were too many pieces of the puzzlemissing - too much she would never tell…I don’t know how to express that being with someone so dangerous is the last time that I felt safe(Fitch, 1999).”
Astrid is the daughter of the antagonist Ingrid Magnussen who has been raising the 12 year old girl, as a single mother in Los Angeles, California. Their lives change dramatically when Ingrid falls in love with Barry Kolker. In the course of their relationship, Ingrid discovers that he is …show more content…
The first home she is matched with is that of Starr a recovering drug addict, former stripper with two children of her own. After having a relationship with Starr’s boyfriend Ray, Starr shots her during an altercation. This leads to Astrid being moved to MacLaren Children’s Center where she is later matched up with Claire Richards and her husband Ron. Here she learns what love is and is content until her mother interferes in the blossoming relationship. Her meddling in the union leads to Claire’s suicide, which catapults Astrid back into the children’s center. The case worker assigned to Astrid tries to match her up with a stable family but Astrid decides that she wants to go with the Russian foster mother Rena Grushenka. Eventually, she makes a break for it when she confronts her mother about her past after her mother’s solicitor comes to ask Astrid to testify in her mother’s defence. She pleads with Ingrid to let her go which she does by asking her lawyer not to bother Astrid during her final appeal for Barry’s murder