Girl, Interrupted
I know the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest comparison has been trotted out by critics before me, but c’mon – you can’t set a let’s-buck-the-system film in a mental institution without recalling Forman’s phenomenally unsettling stunner any more than you can make a shark movie without everyone thinking of Jaws. And naturally, just about anything would pale in comparison to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but Girl, Interrupted is a decent, if flawed, movie.
I originally thought that this film was set in the 60’s to give the boomers a comfortably familiar soundtrack and allow inmates to suck down cigarettes and blow smoke accusingly at their clueless doctors while in the hospital, but I’ve since learned that Girl, Interrupted is based on a true story, which explains why it ultimately has an unsatisfying conclusion. Real life rarely makes for compelling drama unless you are Nelson Mandela or someone who leads a similarly extraordinary existence; the titular Interrupted Girl is instead a self-absorbed petulant depressed child who Learns and Grows and Heals. Watching other people’s therapy is about as compelling as watching them change their oil, and in a narrative sense, Girl, Interrupted is a trip to Speedway Lube & Tune – what makes it worth seeing is the character study it reveals along the way.
Browbeaten into checking herself into the institution after a failed (obviously) suicide attempt, Susanna then rails against the very people who (unlike the chilling hostility of Cuckoo’s Nurse Ratched) are genuinely interested in helping her, if a bit misguided about how to do so. This makes Susanna less than fully sympathetic, but credit Winona Ryder with making Susanna’s internal struggle convincing – she makes what must have been long passages of the novel’s internal dialogue transparent with her expressive eyes and shifting face. When she finally sees that The Only Person She is Hurting is Herself and agrees to do the hard work to improve, you can see the shift in her posture from beaten to assertive, her face turning soft from pinched.
Still, the standout is undoubtedly Angelina Jolie, who in a bang-up, knock-em-dead performance smolders and jabs and writhes and screeches and basically out-acts everyone within shouting distance. I don’t know what movie she thought she might be in, but I want to see that one. Jolie has the killer intelligence and scummy sexuality to make fellow inmate Lisa fairly ignite with treacherous charisma – you literally can’t take your eyes off her whenever she appears onscreen. Lisa is the kind of woman whose friendship comes at a cost, like raising a bobcat that will never fully be domesticated – Susanna must choose between joining in Lisa’s rebellion or seeing it for what it really is, and it’s Jolie’s remarkable work that makes the difficulty of Susanna’s choice believable.
Turning melodramatic and strangely upbeat after chronicling the hazards of mental illness and the limited techniques we have to deal with it, Girl, Interrupted ends on a Note, Sour. Marginally embarrassing expository voiceover opens and closes the film, and many of the surrounding cast of inmates are underdeveloped stock characters. But that’s beside the point, really - the first-rate performances of Ryder and particularly Jolie make their relationship memorable when the story is not.
- Jared O'Connor
MOVIES
All Content © 1997, 1998, 1999 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker