A potentially interesting story but for me it lacked depth and was a bit shallow

Rating: 4/10 (8 March 2017)

Based on a true story, Girl, Interrupted gives an account of Susanna Kaysen's 18 month stay at a mental hospital during the 1960's.
I'll kick off with a disclaimer that I have not read Susanna Kaysen's book, but I can only presume, and hope, that the book doesn't have nearly as many shortcomings as the film.
One major thing I did take exception to with this film is its lack of depth and development in terms of its characters. Angelina Jolie's character Lisa is a sociopath who is little more than a playground bully which truth be told is it a little one-note and becomes a bit tiresome after the novelty wears off. Jolie is quite good here and this film helped to showcase that she had some range, but I just wish that her character had been given more dimension and depth. In fairness, we do gain more of an understanding of her character at the end of the film, but this doesn't make up for the fact that Jolie had nothing to work with in the early stages of the film. The only other supporting character to get any sort of focus was Daisy (Brittany Murphy), but again her character isn't that well-written and her character, like Lisa, didn't really have enough depth to make me care.
Even when looking at the main character Susanna the writers probably don't develop her as well as they should have done; it seemed with Susanna, like Lisa, that all of the interesting things about her character are lazily thrown in at the end and prior to this we witness numerous therapy sessions, flashbacks, and Susanna ingratiating herself with the sisterhood at Claymoore and sadly I didn't find any of these things particularly insightful.
Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder put in good performances and some of the insights given at the end do give the film some weight, but I couldn't help but feel that the director's own indulgences got in the way far too often. Girl, Interrupted provides us with a lot of potentially interesting characters that sadly are never allowed to become interesting and a potentially interesting story that doesn't always focus its attention in the right areas. Inevitably, this film will probably be compared to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but by comparison, Girl, Interrupted falls short.