Unwelcoming Cliffnote to something far more profound

Rating: 4/10 (23 June 2000)

This movie starts and ends in the same place - nowhere. Who are these people? Why should I care about them? Outside of a few flashbacks Winona Ryder (playing Susanna) has (which are all conveniently forgotten about within 20 minutes of the film), we get no background on anyone. It's as if we're expected to believe each of these nuts were delivered by a stork, without reason, to the mental ward, never to be released again. What drove these people to such a desolate place? What drove James Mangold to write and direct such a meandering film? I must confess that I have not read the novel, upon which this movie is based, and I'm guessing a lot of the questions I, and everyone I have talked to about the movie "Girl, Interrupted", have asked are answered between its pages. Still, not one of us were advised that this movie was merely a companion piece to some depressed rich kid's desolate fantasy. I feel this movie is a bleak, unwelcoming Cliffnote to something far more profound. I'm generally an avid reader, and I will most likely give in and buy the novel, but, without it, I wouldn't pay to see this film if somebody paid me to do so . . . take that to your therapy session, and smoke it.