Astrid Magnussen is a 15 year old girl, living in California. Her mother, Ingrid, is a beautiful, free-spirited poet. Their life, though unusual, is satisfying until one day, a man named Barry Kolker (that her mother refers to at first as "The goat man") comes into their lives, and Ingrid falls madly in love with him, only to have her heart broken, and her life ruined. For revenge, Ingrid murders Barry with the deadly poison of her favourite flower: The White Oleander. She is sent to prison for life, and Astrid has to go through foster home after foster home. Throughout nearly a decade she experiences forbidden love, religion, near-death experiences, drugs, starvation, and how it feels to be loved. But throughout these years, she keeps in touch with her mother via letters to prison. And while Ingrid's gift is to give Astrid the power to survive, Astrid's gift is to teach her Mother about love.

The scene that Ren?e Zellweger's character Claire shares from her career in film is a clip from The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994) which was one of Zellweger's first movies.

Paul:
What happened?


Astrid:
She let me go.

Continuity: Astrid is blonde throughout most of the movie (until she turns Goth and dyes her hair while fostered to the Russian woman), but in some of the scenes at McKinney Hall after Claire's suicide, before and after visiting her mother in prison, her eyebrows are dark and dark roots are showing in her hair.

Written by Earl Rose
Performed by Earl Rose