powerful story about healing

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 2006)

This was actually much better than I expected it to be. Scratch Winona and I'd have given it a 10/10. Since, sadly, she's there and she can't act, it's not a classic in my opinion. Based on the book, "Girl, Interrupted", it is the chronicle of Susanna Kaysen's stay in a mental hospital in the late '60's. The issue deep down is healing - how do we heal? How do we get attached to our own illness? How do we change our own view of ourself? Susanna first needs to realize she's sick, to face up to her suicide attempt as not simply 'trying to get rid of a headache', and then she can heal. Lisa (portrayed by the ever-gorgeous Angelina Jolie) is another inmate at the hospital, who identifies with her mental illness and holds onto it, believing it makes her better than normal people. She's the voice of negativity and stasis, oddly seductive. She introduces herself as a sociopath, but by the end, she says, in what is possibly the most memorable line, "I'm not really dead inside." Lisa's story is, in my opinion, more powerful and tragic than Susanna's, and Jolie is definitely the better actress. I completely changed my opinion of her. All in all, it's about escaping yourself, or your own negative side that blocks the path to the remedy. The most important image is close to the end, when Susanna and Lisa are in the basement - Susanna's leaving the next day, and Lisa is tormenting her for submitting to the outside world. Lisa following Susanna through the dark, underground corridors screaming, as Susanna tries desperately to find a way out, is a troubling metaphor for the battle between the dual natures of our own egos. The Frank Sinatra song "Downtown" at the end was really sad, for some reason, and it really makes you understand, if you're depressed, that not all happy people are shallow. People that have gone through bad times and come out the other end whole are the strongest of all.