Girl, Interrupted (film)

Girl, Interrupted

Theatrical release poster
Directed by James Mangold
Produced by Douglas Wick
Cathy Konrad
Winona Ryder (executive)
Carol Bodie (executive)
Screenplay by James Mangold
Lisa Loomer
Anna Hamilton Phelan
Based on Girl, Interrupted
by Susanna Kaysen
Starring Winona Ryder
Angelina Jolie
Clea DuVall
Brittany Murphy
Elisabeth Moss
Jared Leto
Jeffrey Tambor
Vanessa Redgrave
Whoopi Goldberg
Music by Mychael Danna
Cinematography Jack N. Green
Edited by Kevin Tent
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release dates
  • December 21, 1999
Running time
 127 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $40 million
Box office $48,350,205[1]

Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 American drama film, and an adaptation of Susanna Kaysen's 1993 memoir of the same name. The film chronicles Kaysen's 18-month stay at a mental institution. Directed by James Mangold, the film stars Winona Ryder (who also served as an executive producer on the film) as Kaysen, with a supporting cast that includes Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave.

Girl, Interrupted was released on December 21, 1999. Though the film received mixed reviews from film critics, Jolie received considerable praise for her performance and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award.

Plot

In April 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) checks herself into Claymoore Hospital after taking an overdose of aspirin. She denies the accusation from many that she was attempting to commit suicide, claiming that she was only "trying to make the shit stop". Nurses and therapists are surprised when Susanna acknowledges that she does not actually want to go to college and would like to become a writer.

Susanna befriends fellow patients Polly "Torch" Clark (Elisabeth Moss), Georgina Tuskin (Clea DuVall), Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), Janet Webber (Angela Bettis) and Cynthia Crowley (Jillian Armenante). She is particularly enchanted by Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), a sociopath who manipulates the women around her. Lisa encourages Susanna to stop taking her medication, sneak out of their room together, and resist therapy.

On a group visit to an ice cream shop, Susanna is confronted by the wife of an English professor with whom she had an affair. Lisa defends Susanna.

Susanna is visited by her ex-boyfriend Toby (Jared Leto), who reveals that he is about to be drafted and invites her to run away to Canada with him. He tries to convince her that she is not crazy and that the girls in the asylum are not really her friends, but Susanna refuses to go with him.

That night, Polly wakes screaming and is placed in solitary confinement. To cheer her up, Susanna steals a guitar from the music room and sits outside Polly's room with Lisa, singing "Downtown" by Petula Clark. Lisa slips a pill into the mouth of the sleeping orderly, and seduces another orderly to keep him from reporting them. When a male orderly notices them, Susanna seduces him to keep him from reporting the incident. Valerie Owens, the RN (Whoopi Goldberg), refers them to the therapists.

Susanna meets the head psychiatrist, Dr. Sonia Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), and attempts to shut her out with a nasty attitude. In response, Wick decides to take Susanna as her patient. She is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Lisa is also taken to see the doctor but does not return, and Susanna falls into a depression. Frustrated with Susanna's noncompliance, Valerie throws her into a cold bath to wake her and repels Susanna's verbal attack, stating that in spite of her disorder, she is not crazy, just a "lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving herself crazy".

Lisa returns in the middle of the night, and she and Susanna break out of Claymoore. They spend the night at the house of the recently released Daisy, whom Lisa antagonizes in her usual fashion. She accuses Daisy of having an incestuous relationship with her father, and mocks her for continuing to cut herself. Although Susanna expresses anger toward Lisa, she is not able to stop her nor does she look for Daisy until the next morning, when she discovers that Daisy has hanged herself. Unfazed by the suicide, Lisa searches Daisy's pocket and takes whatever cash she can find. She puts the money in Susanna's coat and decides that it is time to leave, but Susanna stays behind to phone an ambulance and subsequently return to the hospital, while Lisa remains at large. Susanna also adopts Daisy's cat, Ruby. In the next few weeks, she begins to cooperate with her doctors and responds to her therapy, expressing her feelings through writing and painting. She is soon scheduled to be released.

At that point, Lisa is caught and returned by the police. Upon learning about Susanna's pending release, Lisa targets Susanna for ridicule and emotional abuse. On her last night at Claymoore, Susanna awakens to discover Lisa in the maze of corridors beneath the ward, reading Susanna's diary to Georgina and Polly, including all of the private thoughts and comments she has made about the other patients. The other girls turn on Susanna, with Georgina verbally threatening to have Susanna killed by her father, who she claims to be head of the CIA, and with Lisa particularly vicious, stating that she has done everything for Susanna, playing the villain so that Susanna could be the good guy. Susanna eventually stands up to Lisa, telling her that Lisa keeps coming back to the hospital because she has nowhere else to go, and that she is "already dead". Emotionally wounded, Lisa decides to stab herself with a large hypodermic needle and attempts to commit suicide, but Georgina verbally reaches out to her and she stops. Defeated, Lisa suffers a mental breakdown and cries out in anguish, revealing that her sociopathy is possibly false. A scene from the start of the film reveals that the four stayed in the basement until being found by orderlies at daybreak; Polly holding Ruby, Georgina tidying up the mess caused by the confrontation and Lisa resting in Susanna's lap.

Susanna is released the next day. Before she leaves, she visits Lisa, who is now strapped down to a bed, and tells her that she will get out and that she must come and see her. Although depressed, Lisa is now much more emotionally expressive. As Susanna leaves, she says goodbye to all her friends, giving Polly her adopted cat Ruby and reconciling with Georgina. At the end of the film, Susanna states that by the 1970s, many of her friends had been released, some of them seen and others never heard of again.

Cast

Production

In a 2000 Charlie Rose interview, Ryder revealed her strong passion to produce the film, indicating that it took seven years to get to the screen. After reading the book, Ryder immediately tried to secure the rights; however, a week earlier they had been purchased by Douglas Wick. Ryder then decided to team up with Wick along with her manager Carol Bodie, who acted as executive producer along with Ryder. Ryder also stated that she tried hard to persuade James Mangold to direct the film, who was reluctant at first. She states that Mangold was the right man for the role as director after she saw his directorial debut Heavy, which explored similar themes to Girl, Interrupted.

Filming

Filming took place along Main Street in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as in Harrisburg State Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg was chosen for its old fashioned appearance and its old style drug store simply titled "Drugs", all of which gave the film its time-dated appearance. A shot seen in the trailer shows the van traveling towards downtown Harrisburg over the State Street Bridge, where the Capitol building is clearly visible.[2] Deleted scenes were also filmed at Reading's Public Museum.

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews upon release. However, Angelina Jolie's performance received much praise from critics. Girl Interrupted currently holds a rating of 54% on Rotten Tomatoes,[3] and a rating of 51 on Metacritic,[4] indicating largely mixed reviews from critics.

Stephen Holden in The New York Times wrote; "Girl, Interrupted is a small, intense period piece with a hardheaded tough-love attitude toward lazy, self-indulgent little girls flirting with madness: You can drive yourself crazy, or you can get over it. The choice is yours."[5]

Tom Coates from the BBC wrote; "Girl, Interrupted is a decent adaptation of her memoir of this period, neatened up and polished for an audience more familiar with gloss than grit."[6]

Author opinion

The author, Susanna Kaysen, was among the detractors of the film, accusing Mangold of adding "melodramatic drivel" to the story by inventing plot points that never happened in the book (such as Lisa and Susanna running away together).[7]

Accolades

Soundtrack

  1. The Doors performing "Roadhouse Blues"
  2. Merrilee Rush performing "Angel of the Morning"
  3. Petula Clark performing "Downtown"
  4. Skeeter Davis performing "The End of the World"
  5. Aretha Franklin performing "Night Time Is the Right Time"
  6. Jefferson Airplane performing "Comin' Back to Me"
  7. Them performing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
  8. The Chambers Brothers performing "Time Has Come Today'"
  9. The Band performing "The Weight"
  10. The Mamas & the Papas performing "Got a Feeling"
  11. Wilco performing "How to Fight Loneliness"
  12. Simon & Garfunkel performing "Bookends Theme"

References

  1. ↑ "Girl, Interrupted (1999)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
  2. ↑ "Information on the filming of Girl, Interrupted at Harrisburg State Hospital". Retrieved 2011-01-27.
  3. ↑ "Girl, Interrupted Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
  4. ↑ "Girl, Interrupted Reviews, Ratings, Credits". Metacritic. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
  5. ↑ "New York Times Review". New York Times. 1999-12-21. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
  6. ↑ "BBC Review". BBC. 2001-06-28. Retrieved 2010-06-21.
  7. ↑ Danker, Jared. "Susanna Kaysen, without interruptions". TheJusticeOnline.com. Retrieved 2003-02-04.

External links

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