I Wanna Be A 'Girl Interupted!'

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2000)

Using the turbulent sixties as a backdrop, and relying on the typical negative commentary about psychiatry, Girl Interupted is the story of one social misfit who, denied any say in the matter, commits herself into a mental hospital.
Winona Ryder is Susanna, a sullen teenager fresh out of high school, who is battling depression and 'who knows what else' She has had an affair with a married man and she recently swallowed a bottle of pills, chasing them down with a bottle of vodka. She claimed she had a head ache.
Once inside, she is subject to the wisdom of Whoopi Goldberg, and befriended by one rough house patient named Lisa (played by Angelina Joli). Of course everyone goes on a bit of a journey into self discovery, and we learn that crazy people really aren't so bad.
I had some serious problems with this movie, yet at the same time, I kind of liked it. There is a story here, and it does move well. Winona Ryder is actually very good in this role, and in fact this probably ranks up there as one of her best. Angelina Joli, meanwhile, steals the show as an 'out of control' freak with a heart of gold. Count this one as a milestone moment in a budding career.
On the other hand, as a whole, this movie does not offer us anything new, and despite the bad language, this subject could have been handled just as well as a movie of the week. I have heard comparisons to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but such a classic cannot be touched by a film filled with a bunch of little tarts running around in their night gowns behaving like children.
My biggest concern about Girl Interupted was not what it presented, but what it failed to present. The girls here seem to have it made. There is no real damage done to a bunch of sex starved chicks who hide their pills and then take them later on for the sake of getting high. Girl Interupted presents a promising picture of patients of psychiatry, suggesting that a short visit will have you cured in no time and failing to mention that the stigma attached to these places, then and now, can be somewhat limiting indeed.