Audience, Bored

Rating: 3/10 (23 January 2000)

There are some people out there who might like Girl, Interrupted, the latest Winona Ryder movie. Those people, most of them women, will identify with the soul-paralyzing apathy of the lead character, Susanna (Ryder). Her descent into an emotionally barren life of empty drudgery is actually based on the autobiography of Susanna Kaysen; her book chronicles the days of her life in the 60's. Being a true story, very little happens, as most real people lead brain-bleedingly dull lives. Aside from some angst-ridden whining by Susanna, and her occasional "adventurous" tryst with bad-girl antagonist Lisa, this movie still has the same dull heartbeat as many of its doped-up and drooling extras.
Add to the fact that Lisa, the crazy, wild, exhilarating rebel inmate, is played by Angelina "inflate lips to 40 psi" Jolie, who is not one of my favorite actresses, as some of you know.
Ryder did a good job. With a role as self-indulgent as any lead character is in a drama about an emotional journey to self-acceptance, Winona still managed to keep the character fresh without dabbling in any pandering. Jolie, though. Let me tell you.
Writers like to create crazy characters, by crazy I mean they do all the things we all want to do but don't, and so we don't think they're crazy, but cool and reckless and lonely and wild and sassy. Hence, we are supposed to like the crazy character, learn a little bit about ourselves, and go home happy. Jolie's portrayal fails on all three counts, despite fitting the Hollywood stereotype to a T. Enacting out her cool, textbook version of insane, Jolie sucks all the life out of this film from the word go. Not that there's much to begin with.
The first quarter of the movie is interesting to watch, only insomuch as it seems to be highly derivative of Vonnegut. Susanna seems to be "unstuck in time" as it were, and events in her life are depicted out of proper context. The suggestion is that Susanna is drifting back and forth between different events. She's the new millennium's Billy Pilgrim, except this version is written by Nora Ephron.
Well, not really, but that's what it seems like.
The poignancy of the story, its heart and strength, is lost in dull, poetic self-absorption. It's akin to reading a romantically jilted younger sister's diary; there's so much angst, so much pain, and you really do want to feel sorry for her. But then you get to an original poem and the first line is "Darkness fills my empty heart," and you guffaw out loud. Admit it. You do.
Of all the things going for this film--beautiful cinematography, some decent acting, rich subject matter, and even Whoopi Goldberg (turning in an excellent performance as Nurse Valerie)--it is anchored down by an immovable plot and mindless meandering. It would make a good Lifetime original miniseries, but not much more.
And plus there's ol' fish lips Jolie.