*RYDER AND JOLIE WERE KISSING!!!!!!!*

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2001)

I absolutely loved this movie!!!!!!! I fell in love with it instantly. Now it's my second favorite of all time! Winona is the BEST actress in Hollywood. She's way *hotter* than all of them, and that includes Jennifer Lopez!!!! This is probably her best role. It is based on the psychiatric memoirs of the writer Susana Kaysen of the same title (published in '93). Ads for the flick boast that it is based on a true story, though none of the things that happened in the movie were in the book. They even go as far as changing the hospital's name (it's not really Claymoore, it's McLean). It's a fascinating book that i highly recomend, but let's put that aside and look at the movie. Ryder plays a teen entering womanhood when she attempts suicide for no apparant reason. She lives in her head, is always day dreaming, very immature and childlike, and doesn't have female friends but has many boyfriends. Look closely at the first chapter. After the therapist talked to her for only what seems like less than an hour, he sentences her to a teenage girls' mental hospital. When Susana goes into the cab, she notices her luggage had already been packed and ready to go. And her mom is across the street in a car waving quietly (just the Mom, but how about the dad?). She doesn't even step out to hug her daughter good bye! How suspicious. The fun really starts when she gets to the hospital and meets all of the crazy chicks. Her roommate is a cute, nice girl named Georgina who reads THE WIZARD OF OZ all the time. And then we get our first impression of Jolie's character being dragged back to the isolation room after a two week escape attempt. Her name's Lisa, and she's the most prominant of the all patients. She seems to poccess all of the answers concerning the way the world works and how people think so she becomes Susana's idol. The first half of the movie goes deeper and deeper into Susana's mind, and then the second half becomes 'The adventures of Susana and Lisa', but i didn't mind. Their adventures were incredibly fun. At some point Susana doesnt wanna leave because for the first time in her life she has real friends. What you'll remember the most is the cast, they're the best collection of characters ever assembled!!!!!!!! Each one is perfectly played by loveable actresses like Brit Murphy and Clea Duvall. You'll also fall in love with the original score. But what's the point of this movie? Well, i think it was trying to show as a girl's unwilling passage into womenhood, and how her childishness earned her a one and a half year vacation from the real world. But at some point, she realizes that the vacation can't last forever because it would lead her life to a dead end. It's also about friendship.
**I GAVE IT 10/10*. FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME!!!!!!!!!!!**