"White Oleander"

Ingrid, as Pfeiffer plays her, has both the look and composure of a self-possessed lizard: Her eyes, which we normally know to be a dazzling blue, are icy and cold here, and you could probably count the number of times she blinks during the whole movie. Pfeiffer has a death grip on Ingrid's cold, creepy self-righteousness, and she doesn't chicken out -- this isn't a character you can have much sympathy for, and Pfeiffer knows it.

Ingrid has more slogans than a comic-book Communist. Even though she purports to be brainy and free-thinking, she's feeding off her own supply of recycled hogwash: "We're women punished for our independence," she tells Astrid at one point. "Don't cry, we're not like that; we're the Vikings, remember?" she says at another. And then there's the classic "Love humiliates you. Hatred cradles you."

Astrid, much as she feels bound to her mother, knows better than to buy her twisted version of refrigerator-magnet wisdom. At times, though, we're not entirely sure that the movie knows it's bunk. The picture has some jokingly sly moments: Two bright-eyed, well-groomed college students show up at Astrid's door to talk to her about her mother, informing her that Ingrid -- that brave, misunderstood, feminist killer artist -- has become their "project" for a women's studies class.

And yet Kosminsky could have taken the movie much further by making it only a little sharper. Pfeiffer isn't afraid to play Ingrid almost completely unsympathetically, but the movie lets her off the hook at the end. We're made to feel that she's just an imperfect creature who has made mistakes, instead of a devious, richly complex enigma -- which would have been more than enough.

But you can see that "White Oleander" is at least trying to dig away at some pretty sophisticated ideas. And Kosminsky tells Astrid's story in a way that carries us along, wondering exactly what will happen next, and how. Pfeiffer's, Penn's and Zellweger's performances are all highly stylized -- in other words, they're the kind of thing that people often mistake for overacting. But it's interesting to see how each of the actresses molds her character: Pfeiffer plays hers as a cool-blooded reptile; Penn is the warm-hearted, honey-voiced mama cat who becomes a cougar when she's threatened; Zellweger is the homey housewife undone by her own sensitivity and soft-heartedness. They're all caricatures, but the trick is that each of these actresses knows how to apply just the right embellishments. Within the movie's universe, they're completely believable.

Lohman may have it the hardest, if only because she's the novice in this huddle of pros. But she rarely looks as if she's trying too hard (her worst moments are the sappy, deadwood voiceovers she's been saddled with -- no actress could carry them off). Lohman is a guileless but wary actress, and that suits her character -- Astrid is the kind of kid who drinks everything in and processes it carefully before deciding whether to buy it or not. (We can see that this is a trait she got from her mother, and also the one that ends up being her best defense against her mother.)

Lohman is particularly sweet in her scenes with Patrick Fugit (of "Almost Famous"), the comic-book-artist and fellow lost kid she falls in love with. The two of them have an easy rapport that feels warm and genuine, and heightens the movie's view of them as smart teenagers who need to make sense of their own lives in a world of warped adults.

"White Oleander" has its overwrought moments, but then again, that's what the tradition of melodrama is all about. The movie isn't camp, nor is it self-serious and parched. It hovers somewhere in between, and somehow keeps us watching. Maybe it's only half of what it could be, but at least it's a healthy half. And in this era of mainstream cookie-cutter moviemaking, that's a feat in itself.

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