A very good, and sometimes funny, mental health drama based on a true story.

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2000)

Until I actually rented the DVD I didn't realize "Girl, Interrupted", is based on a real person, Susanna Kaysen, who based her book on experiences in 1967 and 1968 as a teenager in a mental institution. As with many, many teenagers, it turns out she is far from being "crazy", just lazy about addressing her hang-ups, and resisting "growing up."
I rate this movie a solid 8 of 10. The acting is uniformly good, including Caryn Elaine Johnson as nurse Valerie. Of course Angeline Jolie won the Oscar for best supporting actress. Winona Ryder, who also produced the movie, has the lead role of Susanna Kaysen, and she does her usual superb job. In a brief role as Dr. Wick, Vanessa Redgrave I feel gave perhaps the most believable performance of all.
Many older movies involving mental institutions exaggerate the conditions and happenings in them. This one did not. The portrayals were very realistic, the "inmates" as well as the staff. The film did a neat job of relating Dorothy's quest to get home in the "Wizard of Oz" to Susanna's quest to get out of the hospital and live a normal life. This worked well for this movie.
The DVD has some interesting features, including an interview with the real Susanna Kaysen who is now about 50. In photos of her at 17 she looks remarkably like Winona Ryder's characterization. However, she has not "aged very gracefully", if you know what I mean! :-) The deleted scenes were mostly to shorten the original cut of the film from over 3 hours to just over 2 hours. Parts of the film move a bit slowly and 3 hours would have been way too much. One of the deleted scenes relates the title of the movie to the painting, "Girl, Interrupted."
Overall a good film, gets you thinking about life, and makes you glad you somehow survived your own teenage years.
One more thing. Caryn Elaine Johnson is the real name of Whoopi Goldberg...