Oprah's Book Club, for all the good it did for reading as a pastime, still has a lot to answer for. Swiftly becoming a brand, a genre unto itself, the novels selected for Oprah's Book Club were almost ...

If anyone tries to tell you that “White Oleander,” the movie adaptation of Janet Fitch’s highly successful first novel, is a moving story about growth, redemption and self-discovery, don’t buy it — no ...

Under the white oleander’s surface beauty lies a dangerous toxin – and under the lovely exterior of Ingrid Magnussen (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) brews a deadly need to control. “White Oleander” ...

"I don't know how to express how being with someone so dangerous was the last time I felt safe." The white oleander of the title is Michelle Pfeiffer's Ingrid, a free-living single mom and determined ...

WHITE OLEANDER: Drama. Starring Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn, Renee Zellweger. Directed by Peter Kosminsky. Written by Mary Agnes Donoghue from Janet Fitch's novel. (PG-13. 108 ...

A double sense of loss runs through the film version of Janet Fitch’s bestselling novel, “White Oleander,” a feeling of absence that is partly appropriate and partly not. What’s intended is the loss ...

The symbolic weight of Peter Kosminsky’s new film, “White Oleander,” is all in the hair. Everyone starts out blonde, thus leading us to ask the important question (and tagline of the film): “Where ...

There's a world of hurt in Janet Fitch's second novel, Paint it Black-- and if you venture in even a few pages, that world is going to hurt you. A lot. Fitch is the Los Angeles writer whose first ...

Never rising above routine episodic storytelling, "White Oleander" nonetheless retains something of its source novel's ravaged emotional surface and cool, observant manner. Indeed, fans of Janet Fitch ...

Nothing sinks this movie-lover’s heart faster than voice-over narration as a picture begins. Often, it’s a sign that the movie has been adapted from a book built on language too plummy to discard; ...