i have noticed some similarities with "Girl" and "Cuckoo's Nest".......

Rating: 9/10 (15 July 2005)

when i first saw "Girl,Interrrupted" i was in an outpatient day psych program myself. the staff only showed the first half of the movie, but from that first half, i could tell it was going to be a good one. then the movie finally came on a cable station unedited and i finally saw it from beginning to end. the "Susanna" character played by Wynona Ryder was fascinating and at the same time elusive. Daisy, the fragile girl with the eating disorder, was very poignant and for some reason i sensed she would come to a tragic end - which she did - in the movie. Angelina Jolie's "Lisa" reminded me of a friend i knew who was reckless in everything she did not to mention insensitive to other people's feelings. she played "Lisa" very convincingly to me.
i guess every movie has it's most remembered moments...and it was the saddest moment of the whole movie, and of course, when Daisy committed suicide while this old 60s song, "The End of the World" 45 record kept playing over and over. the night before "Lisa" had confronted Daisy about what had happened to her as a child, and when Daisy went upstairs somehow i knew she wasn't gonna see the next day. i cried when Susanna called for Daisy the next morning and that sad song was playing and Susanna went up the stairs to Daisy's room and all you saw were Daisy's feet dangling from where she'd hung herself. i was ticked off at Lisa's response "what an idiot" -- i felt was very callous and abrasive. but then again that was Lisa's personality -- much like that of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nests" R.P. McMurphy, played by Jack Nicholson.
from other posts that i have read, that this movie is comparable to "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" based on the book by Ken Kersey, i will admit there are some slight similarities...Angelina Jolie's brassy "Lisa" is reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's "R.P. McMurphy" a swaggering loudmouthed cigarette-smoking rowdy who challenges the "Big Nurse" the evil "Nurse Ratched". In GI, there is also a head nurse who is the complete opposite of the evil Nurse Ratched, played by Whoopi Goldberg, who plays a more compassionate yet no-nonsense nurse. For those who have seen or have "One Flew.." there is also a tragedy in that film as well...after a night of carousing the ward, and Nurse Ratched walking in on all the chaotic aftermath, she goes and shames the one patient who is the most troubled of the group, Billy Bibbit, who eventually goes into the doctor's office and commits suicide by cutting his own throat. Again, a similarly tragic moment when Daisy (Brittney Murphy) hangs herself after an abrasive interaction with Jolie's 'Lisa'. in the ending of both movies, one actually does fly over the cuckoos nest -- the pseudo-deaf Indian, played by the late Will Sampson, and in "Girl" Susanna, played by Wynona Ryder. i think that both movies are excellent, with the exception that "Cuckoo's Nest" showed a much more gritty side of patient life in a psychiatric hospital, and the use of Etc (electro-convulsive therapy), back in the 60s, and the performing of unnecessary lobotomies. i think if i'm not mistaken, Lisa ends up receiving shock therapy and is put in leather restraints, looking haggard (correct me if i am wrong), but this film does not show the actual procedure taking place. "GI" diagnosis of Susanna's character as being "borderline personality" to me stands to be corrected...i think a more fitting description would have been major depression, i.e., her suicide attempt and melancholy mood and demeanor. i can say this because i am currently in recovery for depression and i can relate to the symptoms she presented with, and i too have been hospitalized...only my hospitalization was nothing like the ones portrayed in "Cuckoo's Nest" and "Girl". at times i feel mental illness is not accurately portrayed in films, but then again, with today's everchanging times and better treatment of mentally ill patients and the newer meds, these movies (along with "A Beautiful Mind")kind of gives the viewer a thumbnail sketch of how serious mental illness can be. and as one of many people who suffer from mental illness, it is good that the movies are now being bold enough to tell these stories and thus raise awareness in the minds of viewers that yes, this can happen to you too.