Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists. The film is based on the best-selling memoir of Susanna Kaysen, institutionalized when she was 18 years old. Angelina Jolie , Vanessa Redgrave and Whoopi Goldberg co-star in the film. That same year, at 19, Ryder went to a hospital for debilitating anxiety attacks. In addition, she says, it's normal to not be normal all the time.
Human beings have good days and bad days, and have impulses.
The two young actresses bonded, both on and off camera. We let go of all of our private thoughts, and we embraced each other. The intense relationship that evolves on-screen takes Ryder's character on a healing journey of self discovery. Talk about Academy Awards candidates. Yet she found it was difficult to get out once committed, and wound up spending nearly a year in the ward.