White Oleander (2002)
Alison Lohman: Astrid Magnussen
Photos
Quotes
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Astrid : 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 had reached the end. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing, too much you would never tell. I could sell these things. People want to buy them, but I'd set all this on fire first. She'd like that, that's what she would do. She'd make it just to burn it. I couldn't afford this one, but the beginning deserves something special. But how do I show that nothing, not a taste, not a smell, not even the color of the sky, has ever been as clear and sharp as it was when I belonged to her. I don't know how to express the being with someone so dangerous is the last time I felt safe...
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Astrid : How long were you gone?
Ingrid : About a year, give or take a few months.
Astrid : My God.
Ingrid : You're not asking the right question. Don't ask me why I left. Ask me why I came back.
Astrid : You should have been sterilized.
Ingrid : I could have left you there, but I didn't. Don't you understand? For once, I did the right thing! When I came back, you knew me. You were sitting by the door, and you looked up, and you reached for me. It was as if you had been waiting for me all along.
Astrid : I was always waiting for you, mother. That's the constant in my life. Waiting for you. Will you come back? Will you forget that you tied me in front of a store or left me on a bus?
Ingrid : Are you still waiting?
Astrid : No. I stopped when Claire showed me what it felt like to be loved. What did you think, that I would amuse you? That's what babies are like, mother. What'd you think? We'd exchange thoughts on Joseph Brodsky?
Ingrid : I thought Klaus and I would live happily ever after. That's what I thought, Adam and Eve in a vine-covered shack. I must have been out of my mind.
Astrid : You were in love with him.
Ingrid : YES, I was in love with him. ALRIGHT? I was in love with him, and baby makes three, and all that crap!
Astrid : Then why did you leave him? Why did you leave him?
Ingrid : I didn't leave him! He left me. You wanna know about your father? He left us when you were six months old for another woman, and I never saw him again until he showed up looking for you when you were eight years old.
Astrid : He came to see me?
Ingrid : Yes, he came to see you but it was a little late, wasn't it? Why should I let him see you after what he did to me?
Astrid : Because it wasn't about you! It was about me, and I wanted to see him! My whole life, I've wanted to see him. That decision was MINE, not yours. Everything's always been about you, never about me. I knew you were gonna kill Barry, but you didn't even care. You didn't give a damn about what that would do to me. I'll say whatever Susan wants me to say, but I gotta get outta here.
Ingrid : No! No, no, no. You don't just walk away from me. I made you, I'm in your blood. You don't go anywhere until I let you go!
Astrid : Then let me go. You look at me and you don't like what you see, but this is the price, mother. The price of belonging to you.
Ingrid : If I could, I'd take it all back. I would.
Astrid : Then tell me you don't want me to testify. Tell me you don't want me like this. Tell me you would sacrifice the rest of your life to have me back the way I was.
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Claire Richards : What was the best day of your life?
Astrid : Today.
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Astrid : Beauty was my mothers law, her religion.
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Astrid : You look at me mother and you don't like what you see. But this is the price... the price of belonging to you.
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[last lines]
Astrid : No matter how much she damaged me... no matter how flawed she is... I know my mother loves me.
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Astrid : My mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was also the most dangerous.
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Astrid : Never let a man spend the night, she said. Never apologize, never explain. She was breaking all her rules, and it would change everything.
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Astrid : You're either an artist or you're not. You are.
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Astrid : You look at me, and you don't like what you see. But this is the price, Mother - the price of belonging to you.
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Astrid : The Next time you and your friends jump me, I'll cut your throats when you're sleeping.
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Davey Thomas : Do you believe in God now?
Astrid : Maybe it's not such a bad thing to believe in something.
Davey Thomas : It's better to know things.
Astrid : Why? What does knowing things get you? Does it tell you the difference between right or wrong? She didn't kill that guy alone. I knew what my mother was doing, you know. I could have saved his life, but I didn't.
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Ingrid : Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior?
Astrid : There's nothing wrong with being a Christian.
Ingrid : Are you out of your mind? How did this happen? I raised you, not a pack of Bible-thumping trailer trash. I raised you to think for yourself.
Astrid : No you didn't. You raised me to think like you. Maybe thinking for yourself isn't so great. Reverend Daniels says it's evil.
Ingrid : Evil? If thinking for yourself is evil, then every artist is evil. Is that what you believe, now that you've been washed in the blood of the Lamb? Man's ability to reason is evil? Am I evil?
Astrid : No, but killing people who don't want you is evil. We pray for your redemption every Sunday.
Ingrid : Fuck my redemption! I don't want to be redeemed; I regret nothing. It's good that you're trying to identify evil, Astrid, but evil is tricky. Just when you think you know what it is, it changes its form. Learning its nature takes a lifetime of study.
