One flew over the cuckoo's nest

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2011)

"Take the life-lie away from the average man and you take away his life." - Henrik Ibsen
1967. 18 year old Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) checks herself into a Mental Hospital after attempting suicide. She is diagnosed with the vaguely titled "Borderline Personality Disorder", a self destructive "illness" which seems to spring from a complex cocktail of alienation, existential malaise, intelligence, despair, depression, misanthropy and a hyper-sensitive nervous system. Unlike average people, who hold cognitive biases in at least three key areas - viewing oneself in unrealistically positive terms, believing one has more control over their environment than they actually do, holding views about the future that are more positive than evidence can justify – Susanna's self-esteem is shattered because she is unwilling to entertain certain consoling delusions.
At the Hospital Susanna meets Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), an uncaring sociopath with a "cold heart". Lisa believes she will "end up" as a "cold hearted sociopath" if she continues to view the world as she does. Lisa thus redefines her depression as a form of self-absorption, narcissism and self-indulgence, identifies herself as "the cause of her problem", exits the Hospital, decides to "be happy", "chooses life" and then learns to write "all her bad feelings and observations in a book". She then becomes a writer. The film was based on the memoirs of author Susanna Kaysen. It's narrative arc is a rights-of-passage many artists or creative types go through. It's what Saint John called a "Dark Night of the Soul" or what Satre termed "existential nausea".
Though one of the best "big budget suicide movies", "Girl, Interrupted" ultimately trivialise mental illness and continues a Hollywood trend (see "Veronica Decides To Die" et al) of placing the blame of "mental illnesses" solely on the individual. In such films, it is always the individual's duty to "adapt to" or "block out" problems. Individuals and society are dichotomized, and the environmental/socioeconomic/cultural/existential milieu in which the subject exists is ignored such that "suicide" is reduced to a kind of biochemical glitch or issue of personal will power.
In reality, though, there is no separation between the individual and society. Human beings become social with the appropriation of language, and it is language that constitutes us as subjects. "Madness" is itself often a kind of discourse, an attempt at communication, and assuming that human beings can ever be 100 percent mentally healthy, self improvement is never possible without first calling a toxic society into question.
Today, most mental disorders are still classified on the basis of symptoms because there are as yet no biological markers or tests for them. This is not to say that some mental illnesses aren't caused by genetic or biological "defects", but that what often passes for mental illness is itself just a symptom of a larger social problem. Medicating the subject is often a form of denial or aversion, and simply results in further problems down the line. The mental health profession has also somehow missed out on various "perspectives" prevalent now in philosophy, history, the social sciences, literature and art. Like the Church, it is in the business of forcing very specific "realities" onto people. Label someone crazy – rationally speaking, Susanna is not wrong – and the subject suddenly is both crazy, and self-reinforces this craziness. Today psychiatry, a multi trillion dollar industry, is responsible for nearly 90 percent of all health care fraud in the United States.
Angelina Jolie won an Academy Award for her performance. Like most Award winners, it's mostly a loud, flashy performance. Winona Ryder, always adorable, does better work here, conveying both fragility and a sense of resultant, overcompensated toughness. The film's title is genius: "mental illness" halts life hard and fast, and often life only seems to re-start once the subject has conquered its demons. Such "conquerings" often take the form of elaborate, psychological con-jobs. We see that here, Sussana "believing" herself to be cured but then seeking out a profession that allows her to maintain physical and psychic distance from that which ills her.
8/10 – Too Hollywood, too superficial, too playful (the hospital feels too much like a fun sorority), but Ryder endears with her frail frame and big Bambi eyes. See "Red Desert", "Titticut Follies", "The Devil Probably", Julian Hendry's "Why Did You Kill My Dad?" and "The Magdalene Sisters". Worth one viewing.