History Film / WhiteOleander

* ADateWithRosiePalms: In the novel, Astrid does this while [[RightThroughTheWall listening to Starr and Ray have sex]].

* BastardBoyfriend: Ron, Claire’s husband, is a subtle variety. On the outside, he loves her and does his best to provide for their posh lifestyle, though Astrid sees that he is always making all the decisions, emotionally hurts Claire and later blames it on her, and is implied to be cheating on Claire when on business trips. Astrid states several times that Ron never cared to know the real Claire and only wanted her to play the part of a happy wife without bothering him too much.

* DepartmentOfChildDisservices: Both the book and film are made of this, though the book goes into more detail.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Ray, Starr's boyfriend, goes from a graying, overweight, 50-ish carpenter who is missing three fingers in the novel to a 30-ish (at most) rugged pretty boy played by Cole Hauser in the film. Paul Trout might be this as well, as he is explicitly stated to be ugly in the novel, and he's played by Patrick Fugit in the film.

* MarriedToTheJob: what Ron appears to be. He may also be using it as a pretext to cheat on Clair or to just be away without having to deal with Claire’s emotional problems.

* SuicideByPills: [[spoiler:How Claire commits suicide after her marital issues and depression prove too much for her to handle.]]
* TitleDrop: Half-example: In the novel Astrid frequently mentions her mother boiling down oleanders when she poisoned Barry.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Somewhat of a JustifiedTrope, since Astrid is in foster care. However, [[spoiler: Starr shooting Astrid]] is a very jarring example- it's never mentioned after Astrid leaves the home (and you think it would be, since y'know, [[spoiler: the main character just got shot!]], but it's not a large enough incident (in terms of the scope of the novel and film, both of which are pretty vast for their mediums) to constitute AbortedArc.
** It's a throwaway line in the novel, but [[spoiler: while Astrid is recovering from the shooting in the hospital, a plainclothes police officer says that they got Starr when they caught her sneaking in trying to visit (said she was visiting her sister) and berate Astrid for making up a story about burglars in order to protect Starr when she's not even her real mother. No mention of a trial or sentencing, but she was arrested. Astrid only lied for Davey's (Starr's biological son) sake.]]

* GratuitousForeignLanguage: the novel has a lot of this, bordering on BilingualBonus. Astrid uses several languages in one line, during the scene where [[spoiler: she and Nikki go to the museum after dropping acid.]] Among others, we have:

* HandsOffParenting: what Ingrid practices as she hates to limit her own freedom in any way. As a result Astrid only felt what it meant to be loved thanks to Claire.
* HappilyMarried: what Ron and Claire look like on the outside. In reality, they have a toxic relationship, with severely depressed Claire and her manipulative, always absent husband who clearly doesn’t have a lot of respect for her, neither as a person nor as an actress.

* AdultsAreUseless: as the book is written from Astrid’s point of view, who is a teenager when the story starts, one can be surprised at how little love, help and care she gets from all the adults around her. She often ends up caring for other people or gets exploited while being in great need of care herself. She has to watch over her mother and Claire when they get too depressed, is forced to babysit and perform all sorts of menial tasks at one of the foster homes while recovering from a bullet wound, is intentionally starved by a woman who only takes in foster kids for money. And when Astrid gets to the youth detention center we realize her story may be just a tip of an iceberg...

* AlcoholicParent: Starr is this to her biological children and an Alcoholic Foster Parent\] to Astrid and the other kids she fosters. She starts out in recovery but goes off the rails when she thinks Astrid is sleeping with Ray. Claire shows shades of this in the novel toward the end of her appearance since a bottle of sherry never leaves her side during Astrid's final weeks there.

* AntiHero: It could be argued that Astrid is a Type III.

* AlcoholicParent: Starr is this to her biological children and an [[AlcoholicParent Alcoholic Foster Parent]] to Astrid and the other kids she fosters. She starts out in recovery but goes off the rails when she thinks Astrid is sleeping with Ray. Claire shows shades of this in the novel toward the end of her appearance since a bottle of sherry never leaves her side during Astrid's final weeks there.

Young Astrid is very close to her single mother Ingrid, whose free-spirited, semi-man-hating lifestyle is all well and good until Ingrid meets and eventually poisons Barry Kolker (Connolly) after he romances and then spurns her. When Astrid's mother goes to prison for the murder, Astrid is left bouncing around foster care and increasingly wondering if her mother's parenting was really very good in the first place. She lives with all different types of families, from born-again Christians to posh to a youth detention center. As she grows older, she recognizes how her mother's manipulative personality has caused her most all of her life's grief. She is forced to really soul search and is left with more questions than answers, including why her mother committed the murder.

Young Astrid is very close to her single mother, Ingrid (Pfeiffer), whose free-spirited, semi-man-hating lifestyle is all well and good until Ingrid meets and eventually poisons Barry Kolker (Connolly), a man who romances and then spurns Ingrid. When Astrid's mother goes to prison for the murder, Astrid is left bouncing around foster care and increasingly wondering if her mother's parenting was really very good in the first place. She lives with all different types of families, from born-again Christians to posh to a youth detention center. As she grows older, she recognizes how her mother's manipulative personality has caused her most all of her life's grief. She is forced to really soul search and is left with more questions than answers, including why her mother committed the murder.

Young Astrid is very close to her single mother, Ingrid (Pfeiffer) whose free-spirited, semi-man-hating lifestyle is all well and good until Ingrid meets and eventually poisons Barry Kolker, a man who romances and then spurns Ingrid. When Astrid's mother goes to prison for the murder, Astrid is left bouncing around foster care and increasingly wondering if her mother's parenting was really very good in the first place. She lives with all different types of families from Born-again Christians to posh to a youth detention center. As she grows older, she recognizes how her mother's manipulative personality has caused her most all of her life's grief. She is forced to really soul search and is left with more questions than answers, including why her mother committed the murder.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0865.JPG]]

The screenplay was adapted from the novel of the same name by Janet Fitch, which was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 1999.

* JailBait: Astrid is this for Ray.

Young Astrid is very close to her single mother, Ingrid (Pfieffer) whose free-spirited, semi-man-hating lifestyle is all well and good until Ingrid meets and eventually poisons Barry Kolker, a man who romances and then spurns Ingrid. When Astrid's mother goes to prison for the murder, Astrid is left bouncing around foster care and increasingly wondering if her mother's parenting was really very good in the first place. She lives with all different types of families from Born-again Christians to posh to a youth detention center. As she grows older, she recognizes how her mother's manipulative personality has caused her most all of her life's grief. She is forced to really soul search and is left with more questions than answers, including why her mother committed the murder.

* YourCheatingHeart.
** Claire adamantly believes that Ron is having an affair, and it is hinted that here she may be in fact right.
** Ray cheats on Starr with a then fourteen-year-old Astrid.

''White Oleander'' is 2000 drama film directed by [[Series/ThePromise2011 Peter Kosminsky]]. The cast features Creator/AlisonLohman in the central role of Astrid Magnussen, and Creator/MichellePfeiffer as her temperamental mother Ingrid, alongside Creator/RobinWright, Creator/ReneeZellweger and Creator/BillyConnolly in supporting roles.