"Love humiliates you. Hate cradles you." They're not exactly life-affirming assurances - especially when they come from your mum.

But fifteen-year-old Astrid's mother is not like any other. For a start, she's doing a life stretch after she stuck her wayward boyfriend with a knife.

She's also a coldly manipulative female Machiavelli who veils her emotional deceipts behind her image as a tortured Californian artist.

When the slammer door shuts behind Ingrid (Pfeiffer), the bright but gauche Astrid finds herself at the mercy of LA's social services.

Pinballing from one set of foster parents to another, she finds herself struggling to adopt the survival techniques she needs to forge he way to adulthood.

She first pitches up with Bible-thumping ex-lapdancer Starr (Wright Penn), who ends up blasting a chunk out of her arm when she thinks Astrid is making eyes at her man.

After a spell in the routine hell of the city's children's home she winds up with stereotypical Californian couple Claire (Zellwegger) and Mark (Noah Wyle).

However, although Claire - a struggling actress - bonds with the youngster her fears that her husband may be having an affair have driven her to the brink of suicide.

Kosminsky, who made the hardhitting drama No Child of Mine about a sexually-abused 11-year-old, softens his approach here.

Although Astrid has a grim, old time of it, her experience doesn't seem a million miles from any other foster child...and a lot better than some.

She's in sunny LA for a start, which has to beat a crumbling children's home in the Welsh valleys, and she appears to ride the emotional storms without too much trouble.

The worst thing she has to suffer are prison visits to her glacially scheming mother who - in a rather far-fetched conceit - appears to have speeded up Claire's demise.

It's a thorougly competent drama, enlivened by the calibre of performances you might expect from the likes of Pfeiffer (excellent) and Zellwegger. But nothing more.

Tim Evans