A close second if you compare it to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2005)

I've always had a problem with movies that say to be based on a true story. Most of the time this means that you'll watch a mediocre TV-movie (at best) that should make you cry your eyes out because of all the misery that happened to this one unfortunate person. Let me put it in another way: when you see the label 'based on a true story', what you'll get is a typical housewife movie. Since I'm not a housewife (I'm a 26 year old male), this kind of movies doesn't appeal to me all that much. But I always like to make exceptions and "Girl, Interrupted" deserves better than being called mediocre.
In fact it reminded me a bit of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", the ULTIMATE classic in this genre, with an outstanding Jack Nicholson. Both movies are situated in the seventies ("Girl, Interrupted" in the sixties and seventies) and both tell the story about a person in a mental institution. The main difference is perhaps that this time it isn't about men, but about women.
Since I'm talking about "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", I will probably have to say which one of the two is the best. Well, the choice wasn't easy to make, but I still prefer "OFOTCN". Why? Not because of the acting. In both movies, the acting is of a very high quality. Neither because of the directing or the script, but because of the time it was made in. "OFOTCN" was the first of the two to appear and shocked the entire world. It showed how these patients were treated (and sometimes still are, but that's something else). Girl Interrupted isn't that shocking anymore. We already know what it was like back than and it all has been done before, even though this is a real story (which adds a lot to the drama).
However, don't think this movie isn't good. It is very good and shocking, especially when you haven't seen "OFOTCN" yet. Let me end by saying that this one is a very close second and that I give it an 8.5/10 (I gave OFOTCN the full 10/10).