White Oleander (2002)

Once Kosminsky came on board he worked with Wells and Donoghue to incorporate even more of Fitch’s original ideas and language into the script. Together they maintained what he refers to as "a writer’s approach" to the adaptation, protecting the core of the project because, he says, "I loved the source material and wanted to use as much of it as I could."

One slight alteration he made was to exclude from the film those few scenes depicting incidents that Astrid herself could not have witnessed. "It struck me straightaway," he explains, "that this is Astrid’s story and the film must maintain her perspective throughout. She leads us through this world and we meet her foster families and absorb the various incidents along with her. We never see anything that Astrid herself could not have seen."

In keeping with Astrid’s point of view, the camera follows her closely and never gets ahead of her. It keeps pace with her as she explores each new environment and then seeks her response by coming around for reaction shots, a method which supports Kosminsky’s desire to "make people feel that they are really entering this world, that it’s real and authentic rather than theatrical."

Director of photography Elliott Davis used mostly hand-held cameras, which helped capture the intimacy of the subject matter. Says Wells, "Once the advent of steadicam revolutionized the industry, most people stopped using hand-held cameras. But filmmakers are realizing that the steadicam forces you into a very fluid style. Peter was after something more immediate and raw."

Due to the episodic nature of the story, Kosminsky found himself directing a series of vignettes and fitting them together. Each foster home had its own cast, setting and set of circumstances with the traditional storytelling arc of a beginning, a middle and an end -- a structure that Kosminsky likens to life. Wells compares the overall effect to a pointillist painting: "When you stand up very close, you see only the little dots of paint. You have to stand back a bit to see the cumulative effect of those countless dots of paint and the beauty of the picture as a whole is revealed."

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