white oleander

what did i do before i had netflix? i guess i missed out on awesome things like the entire series of wonderfalls and nostalgic things like anne of green gables.

last night hotcop and i watched white oleander. i'm about to say something about this movie which i don't think i've ever said about any movie (even anne, although it was close): it was as good as the book. sure, there were things which they left out (the foster home where astrid almost starves to death) and things which they changed (ingrid was actually a poet, not an artist). but HOLY CRAP. i mean, seriously. michelle pfeiffer really can play "the most beautiful woman i've ever seen... the most beautiful woman most people have ever seen. she was also the most dangerous." the mother, like the flower, was just so beautiful, but just so poisonous to anyone who got too close.

i think it really confirms a thought i've had for a long time: there is no relationship more fascinating than the mother/daughter relationship. yes, it's more fascinating than a male/female relationship, more fascinating than a father/daughter relationship, and more fascinating than a father/son relationship. even more fascinating than siblings or girlfriends. there is an unparalleled sense of expectation and urgency between a mother and a daughter. the mother sees the daughter as her second chance, the daughter doesn't want to be like the mother at all; yet wants to please her more than anything.

my own mother and i didn't start really getting along until i went away to college. the intensity of our aversion to each other really came to a head my junior year of high school: she would do things like not get off the computer when i needed to do homework, and i would do things like tell her to shut up. i told my mother to shut up. i cannot even imagine what i would do if i'd had me for a daughter. smacked me. taken away my car. i mean, i got good grades, didn't do drugs, didn't get arrested, but i sure could make my mother feel bad about herself. thank goodness i grew up or something by senior year, because i don't think either of us could have taken much more of it. i've never fought with anyone more than i've fought with my mother.

no daughters for me, thanks.