Review: Girl, Interrupted (1999)

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Girl, Interrupted

Rating

Director

James Mangold

Screenplay

James Mangold, Lisa loomer, Anna Hamilton Phelan (Book: Susanna Kaysen)

Length

2h 07m

Starring

Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea Duvall, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, Vanessa Redgrave, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bettis, Jilliam Armenante

MPAA Rating

Review

Modern doctors would tell you that bulimia, depression and personal identification crises wouldn’t get you put into a mental institution, but in 1968, it was perfectly acceptable.

Winona Ryder plays Susanna Kaysen, a young woman whose own existence is lived in flashbacks of things that could have and should have been done differently, but her mother fears it’s worse, as does her psychologist. He recommends that she check herself into a mental institution so that she can gather her thoughts and receive psychological and pharmaceutical treatment.

She does so, but soon realizes that the other girls there have more strange issues to deal with than she does. The first person she meets is Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg), one of the floor nurses who treats Susanna both with respect and maternity. When Susanna finds herself in trouble Valerie is there to put her back in her place whether she likes it or not.

Angelina Jolie plays a self-important drama queen named Lisa. She purposely pulls stunts and throws temper fits because it draws attention to her. She feels that she won’t be popular without being rebellious in front of the other girls. The other girls include a girl with self-esteem problems, Polly (Elizabeth Moss), whose beautiful face was horribly burned when she set herself on fire in a suicide attempt; a roommate named Georgina (Clea DuVall) who’s trapped in an Oz-induced fantasy world; and a young girl who was raped by her father, Daisy (Brittany Murphy) but never fully accepts what’s happened to her.

What impresses me most about the film is the fine performances by the entire cast. Ryder gives easily one of her finest performances. Her tender, yet rebellious Susanna is perfect for the role. She plays the “borderline personality disorder” with flair and compassion. Jolie is hauntingly realistic in her vile, contemptible role.

Goldberg is terrific, as she normally is in dramatic roles (if only she would stay away from the stinker comedies). Vanessa Redgrave was a surprise as the matronly American psychologist who confronts Susanna about her reckless behavior. The other amazing standout is Murphy. Her troubled Daisy is everything you want in a supporting character. She plays the role with everything it needs, obsessive-compulsive tendencies bordered by low self-image, hazardous vulnerability and quiet desperation.

The story is a stellar one. It focuses on the deep-seeded problems many of us face in our modern lies. We often feel like we’re not important or that we’re losing ourselves in responsibility. We find that our own existence is all for others and never for ourselves and only time and reflection can bring us back into the real world where we will be tried again and again because we can never truly reach an equilibrium between our desired reality and the one that actually exists.

The rest of the design is secondary to the story. It almost seems as if most films need fancy sets and costumes as well as beautiful vistas and quick edits to make themselves better than they actually are; however, when a film comes along that’s about mental dilemmas and psychological trouble, it’s almost best to let the fancy stuff get pushed behind and “Girl, Interrupted” handles that well.

The lighting is appropriately moody and quite often delightful, but the shots are never more than those in any other film, which doesn’t detract at all, but holds the audiences attention to the item of true worth, the story and the performances. Mangold knows how to bring the film into the lives of the characters and their personalities without distracting the audience from them.

“Girl, Interrupted” is a film that can rub people the wrong ways. Its honest realism may seem pseudo-intellectual, but is as deep as any Spielberg film could claim to be without relying heavily on visual style.

Awards Prospects

Winona Ryder is as deserving of an Oscar nomination as anyone, as are Goldberg, Murphy and Jolie, but the Oscars are fickel and don’t like psychological films much when there are other, more popular showy films out there. Jolie is likely to be the only nominee in such a crowded field. The story would be nice to see recognized, but won’t be because of the stiff competition in the Adapted Screenplay field.