Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted is based on a true story by Susanna Kaysen. Brilliantly played by Winona Ryder, Susanna, a teenage girl in the late sixties, finds herself committed to a mental hospital. She is diagnosed as having Borderline Personality Disorder and promptly placed on a wholesome diet of sleeping pills and laxatives. Susanna was, we are told, uncertain about her self-image, long-term goals, the kinds of friends and lovers she should have, and which values to adopt. Sounds like just about anyone I can think of. Most of us are at one time or another confused about who we are or what we want to do with our lives. At the age of 39, I still don't have any "long-term goals", and I don't want to, thank you very much. In the sixties, I probably would have been diagnosed as a Borderline. It was that easy. If you didn't agree with your parents' values, and they wanted to get rid of the embarrassment of having you wandering around at their cocktail parties, it was off to the loony bin with you. At least that's how I understand it from the film. These days, the "Borderline" diagnosis has a whole different set of criteria. The film makes it very clear that Susanna wasn't crazy at all, she was just a confused teenager who refused to succumb to the stupid so-called "values" of society. It was so important to have clear plans for the future, yet at the same time, if you were a young man, you had to make room in your plans to allow for a one-way trip to Vietnam. As Susanna's boyfriend says in one scene, "If they pick my birthday out of a hat, I'm going to die". It's not surprising that the young people of that time were confused about their "long-term goals".
Girl, Interrupted is mostly about Susanna's relationship with the other girls on the ward. There's Lisa, the sociopath, Georgina, the pathological liar, Daisy, the "daddy's girl" who has a fixation with chicken and laxatives, and Polly, the burn-victim who has a horribly scarred face. One of the nurses, Valerie is an interesting character played by Whoopi Goldberg. Lisa is played by Angelina Jolie in a first-rate performance as the kind of girl I don't ever want to meet.
Girl, Interrupted was an enjoyable film to watch, with excellent acting all round, although I found it to be a little unsatisfying. It is simply a slice of Susanna's life; we enter when she is 17 and confused, and leave a year later when she is "cured". Incidentally, I don't think it's possible to be cured of Borderline Personality Disorder in one year, which must prove that Susanna didn't have it in the first place.