"Have you ever confused a dream with life?"

Rating: 8/10 (17 July 2013)

Girl Interrupted explores what goes on inside the minds of young confused girls within a 1960s Mental Institution. It stars Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie both of which give amazing performances in this underrated movie directed by James Mangold who would later go on to directed many other intelligent screenplays such as Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma.
Set in a time when you could be placed away in a mental institution for being gay or having an eating disorder a young freshly graduated Susan (played by Rider) finds herself in such a place for an apparent suicide attempt.
Unsure of what to do in life and having no real goals or achievements to her name (despite being quite intelligent) the young depressed Susanna soon finds herself thrown into the mix of some very disturbed and quite mentally ill patients. One of which is Lisa an apparent sociopath who cleverly manipulates everyone around her and is unable to feel any empathy.
The two girls hit things off and a toxic friendship begins in which we see Lisa slowly drag Susanna into her bleak world.
What make's this movie great is the incredibly well written young female characters which is so hard to come across, with each actress delivering an amazing performance giving this movie a sense of great realism.
As Susanna sets upon the quest to discover her true self and find out if she is really sane we are forced to ask the question, Is it the institution that makes her crazy or did she have deep seeded problems she chose to lock away all along?