Life Interrupted - Superb Acting

Rating: 6/10 (27 September 2000)

The films shows how youth and teenagers could be really misunderstood winning a "free ticket" to a psychiatric hospital.
Selfishness?, comfortableness? What is the role of the family and the society in these cases?
The ghosts of the past and the quicksand of the shadows of a young girl, Susanna, evaluated with a "Borderline Personality Disorder" and obliged to be jailed in a very famous American rich-hospital for an undefined period of time. The effect is a big lack of self confidence together with major communication problems and relationship instability probably due to her environment: family, friends and plastic superficial life. Her life is very much detailed in several flashbacks that show the real "sixties" atmosphere.
Is a sad and worrying film with a very little hope which reached the top when Susanna quits the Hospital and their colleagues stay in as well as when Susanna's diary is disclosed.
James Mangold's direction hand is magical with an excellent editing. All actors are great, Susanna played by Winona Rider has a virginal beauty and a spotless cleverness and Lisa, Susanna's best friend in the Hospital, played by Angelina Jolie, is diabolic with a feline intelligence. Vanessa Redgrave is just her with a theatrical psychiatrist role.