With its open, spontaneous elasticity, White Oleander is that rare Hollywood film -- an attempt to understand, without judgment, a world on its own terms.

The result is an experience of painful awakenings, gorgeous textures, committed acting and silences filled with moment -- a lovely balancing act

Pfeiffer devours every one of her scenes with a ferocious performance.

Director Peter Kosminsky elicits such genuine performances from his talented cast that the film rarely strikes a false note.

The accumulation of sharp candid flashes adds up to a disturbing vision of Los Angeles as a teeming jungle of dysfunction.

No matter how restrained the direction or unsentimental the performances -- and White Oleander scores points for both -- there is no escaping the semi-trashy but oh-so-life-affirming ring of the plot.

Some of the year's most arresting female performances justify White Oleander, a highly episodic melodrama.

Stronger on character than on story, the film version of Janet Fitch's best-seller is shaped and propelled by the astonishing performance of Alison Lohman.

What the movie cannot take from the book is its dreamily descriptive prose and interior monologue. Perhaps because of that, the movie changes the focus from Ingrid, the more fascinating creature, to Astrid, whose clay is more malleable for the big screen.

Overall, you're left wondering why every big novel needs to be a movie. White Oleander would work better as a four-part miniseries -- or at least as a less conventional screenplay.

A lot of White Oleander is heavy sledding of the waa-waa, touchy-feely kind. But just as much of it has the sting of something so real it hurts.

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

All the household changes give the film an episodic quality that leads to a certain start-and-stop dramatic momentum. But fresh face Lohman holds the film together emotionally, more than matching up to the bigger name stars that turn up in supporting roles.

Considering the star power -- and talent -- of the cast around her, it would have been impressive if Alison Lohman had simply held her own as Astrid, the young heroine of White Oleander. Instead, she owns the movie.