a haunting movie

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2007)

It would be hard to say this is a story of a descent into hades like say SNAKE PIT or some of the mental hospital films of the 1940s or 50s. Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) is not really insane nor is she truly suicidal. In reality she is just a little morose.
Her unwillingness to go to college suggests to her upper middle class parents a serious psychological disorder. Since she comes from an upper middle class status conscious family which finds her late adolescent problems upsetting, the rule is where there's money there's treatment and a convenient label. In Susanna Kaysen's case the label becomes BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
The hospital is a farce. It's borderline between being a holding pen for well connected young woman and a joy camp. The Doctor supposedly treating her sleeps during psycho-theraphy. There's kindly Val the nurse who's more of a Super-Mom babysitter for wealthy girls. Meanwhile at night the girls can have the run of the facility as soon as they drug up the night nurse and send her off to sleep. Notwithstanding locks and bars, little toughie Lisa Rowe can escape whenever she wants.
Val is the first to tell Susanna to grow up.
The characters on the ward are interesting: little toughie Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie) who bullies the other patients around, wishy-washy Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy) whose insecurities toughie Lisa knows how to probe; Polly 'Torch' Clark (Elisabeth Moss) and assorted others who just don't want to grow up.
Susanna Kaysen keeps a diary in which she's keeping book on her co-inmates. Can she survive to tell the tale or will the hospital destroy her.
The film is interesting for its period: 1968. The girls are seen huddled around the TV listening to Chet Huntley announcing the grim news of the assassination of Dr Martin L King. Yet there are slight historical lapses: the draft lottery that caught Sussana's boyfriend wasn't started until 1970 or 1971 when Nixon was President. In 1968 LBJ still President that year was still playing catch as catch can with men eligible for the draft.
Yet the film did catch some of the flavor of the 1960s, girls hair styles and clothes excepting Sussana's date from that period. Winona Ryder did exude that occasionally less than subtle upper-middle class racism when addressing Val the nurse.
There is a poignant scene where Susanna meets up with life having passed her by while she was on ice in the looney bin. On a walkabout with the ward and nurse Val off grounds, Susanna meets a high school friend who went to Sara Lawrence University and then on to The Sorbonne.