Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

6/10

Starring

Winona Ryder

Angelina Jolie

Clea DuVall

Brittany Murphy

Elisabeth Moss

Jared Leto

Jeffrey Tambor

Vanessa Redgrave

Whoopi Goldberg

 

Directed by James Mangold

 

The power in the performances and the personal, scene-catching drama are the main takeaways from this movie. Other than that, the plot seemed to want to do too much but then lost interest in everything, and the ending was not as good as it should have been. I guess turning someone’s memoir into a movie isn’t easy if you don’t add some cinematic drama.

Girl, Interrupted is the 1999 award-winning movie for Angelina Jolie (who won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress). The movie is a psychological drama dealing with women with mental disorders, like a female version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but very original in its own right, as it is based on a memoir.

The movie takes place in the late 1960s, with an introduction to the character Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder). She tried to kill herself and was made to check herself into a psychiatric hospital. It is there we meet the different characters in the hospital, which challenges Susanna, as she believes she is not as crazy as the people there. In the ward is a lady named Lisa (Jolie). Lisa is a domineering figure in the hospital, and she befriends Susanna. Susanna wants so badly to get out of the place, but soon her friendship with Lisa becomes a stumbling block to her recovery. We now watch as Susanna allows Lisa to influence her, which leads them down a path of tragedy.

The story is meant to be emotionally challenging to watch as we encounter people with different mental issues and how they deal with them. What I really liked about this movie is the way it avoids making the nurses and doctors the bad guys, as other movies of this sort often do. The doctors and nurses are actually doing their jobs in this flick, and there is no bad guy—just people who are mentally disturbed and are trying to manage their world.

The movie is based on the 1993 memoir of real-life Susanna Kaysen. She was not fully on board with the film's final outcome, as the movie added more subplots to create more dramatic influence, which were not in the book. The movie had a below-average commercial run at the box office and was not a critical success either, even though it featured powerful performances from many of its cast members.

I still think this movie is something everyone should see, as it’s something most people of the 90s really loved about Angelina Jolie.