She's a Girl on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2006)

If you are a prospective viewer or buyer of "Girl, Interrupted", don't be mislead by the many comparisons to "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", other than the setting in a mental hospital there is little similarity. There is little similarity between the two hospitals and no reason to believe that the "movie" adaptation of Kesey's book influenced "Susanna Kaysen's" autobiographical story. If you are looking for a film to predict your reaction a much better choice would be "Ordinary People". It is fairly safe to say that if you enjoyed that film you will be entertained by "Girl, Interrupted".
Although the film was inspired by Kaysen's actual experiences and is told from her point of view (her character is played by Winona Ryder), it is really more allegorical than real; with general themes about freedom, individualism, conformity, and expectations. Unlike "Cuckoo's Nest" the villain is not the system but our own internal demons; "we have met the enemy and he is us".
This is an ensemble piece and in trying to be character inclusive the film must sacrifice a lot of character depth and development. A really good director would grasp this problem and invent ways to compensate; fleshing out characters with visual behaviors and filling the frame with faces and eyes, including extensive reaction shots. Unfortunately, director James Mangold is pretty much clueless and the absence of tight shots and subtle characterization distances the viewer from the characters and makes it hard to identify or connect.
Still the story is compelling enough to engage most viewers and there are enough stereotypes to just fill in the blanks yourself about several characters. For example, the Julie (Angela Bettis) character, a thin ballerina with an eating disorder, needs little supplemental background information and Angela can just get on with things that move along the storyline.
Kaysen's take on herself and her fellow patients is interesting. Everyone sees little purple men, but you only get locked up for it if you complain about it (insert not conforming here). Then like Dorothy in Oz you can always go home by pronouncing yourself willing to conform, since there was never anything wrong (at least relative to everyone else) in the first place. Diagnosed with a Borderline Personality Disorder, Kaysen's real danger is becoming too comfortable in the sheltered environment of the institution to want to go home. Her thoughts of suicide seem rather silly to her after she is actually confronted with death.
A borderline personality is appropriate for the theme of the story because apparently the psychological community is still uncertain about whether such a classification is even valid. The vague description is of a person born with a tendency to react more intensely to lower levels of stress than others and to take longer to recover; peaking emotionally on less provocation and taking longer coming down (which probably describes almost everyone that you know).
The patients in her ward are messed up in a variety of ways, if the girls in my high school had been this interesting I probably would have married one. Most have found a home in the institution and have little desire to leave. One (Lisa-Angelina Jolie) is manipulatively dangerous with no conscience. She periodically escapes but always returns to sadistically pick on and push the buttons of her captive audience inside. Another (Brittney Murphy) is truly a psychological basket case, of course she is the first one to be released.
Winona does a good job with this role but it does not offer her that much, as the nature of the story requires that Susanna be played in a very constrained way. She is a little too old for the role and her style of playing her characters realistically hurts your perception of her acting when everyone else is carrying on in a expressionistic overplay.
Murphy and Whoopi Goldberg (she plays a perceptive RN) really shine. I'm puzzled by the amount of praise Jolie's performance has received. She is fine in the role but there is nothing difficult here, mostly she just plays herself and occasionally looks like she would enjoy pulling the wings off a few flies. Bettis and Murphy could have handled the role just as well while Jolie would have struggled with their parts.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.