Ragazze interrotte

I loved this movie from on the first day I saw it. This story is so unique in its way showing the problems many people have to face when being young. The best thing about this movie is, that it's based upon the experience of the real Susanna Kaysen, which means that the story is not only real but also natural and not "brightened up" for entertainment. It shows reality as it is! The actors do a really great job and among other acting personalities we can find Whoopie Goldberg, Winona Ryder and Jared Leto which seem just perfect for the roles they embody. The story, which seems to me loving and cruel at the same time, is pictured by a wonderful musical score and great songs more or less known from those hard days known as the 60's. This movie is a MUST for everyone who is seeking for a deep, thoughtful and emotional film as well as great actors!

"Borderline personality disorder" is one of those phrases that says more about the people who invented it than it does about the patient it's supposed to describe. When Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) the 18-year old heroine of "Girl Interrupted" enters Claymoore hospital, a psychiatric facility outside Boston, she is diagnosed with the syndrome - but in fact, all she's done is made a hapless suicide attempt and acted slack and mopey and lost in her sober daydreams. Her personality isn't borderline -- it's self-pitying and indulgent. Fortunately, the film understands this. Set in 1967, and adapted from Kaysen's memoir of her two-year experience as an adolescent in the throes of a middle-class crack up, "Girl Interrupted" is shrewd, tough and lively - a junior-league "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that never makes the mistake of portraying its protagonist as a victim-naif. She's more like the original poster child for Prozac Nation: a girl who'd rather interrupt her own life, even if it means going a little crazy, than grow up.

Susanna is thrown in with a turbulent gallery of disturbed young women. They range from a girl who tried to burn her own face off to one who won't eat anything but chicken from her father's deli (she stores the carcasses under the bed). Most of the patients are harmless, but Lisa (Angelina Jolie) a heartless, charismatic sociopath, delights in her destructive power. Jolie brings the kind of combustible sexuality to the screen that our movies, in the age of Meg Ryan have been missing for too long. As Susanna and Lisa become comrades, then enemies, Susanna becomes like a space cadet fighting a secret war with herself, and through Lisa she plays out that war. The film allows Ryder to trace Susanna's gradual emergence from her "borderline" state as she confronts the cruel truth of mental illness.

Directed with satisfying authority by James Mangold, "Girl Interrupted" is really about the thorny neurotic underside of a contemporary young woman's struggle to leave childhood behind. By the end, you feel that Ryder, at long last, has done that as an actress.

In more ways than one, 'Girl Interrupted' is very similar to 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest'. To begin with both the films are set in mental institutions and chronicle life as it unfolds amidst those bland, white walls. Characters in both the film are acutely lifelike. But owing perhaps to it being a true story, 'Girl Interrupted' has characters that are much easier to identify with than McMurphy's brigade. Set in the 60's, the film is an account of the times spent in the Mental Institution by an eighteen year girl, Susanna Kaysen, a character portrayed with astonishing brilliance by the versatile Winona Ryder.

Susanna is a victim of neurosis, great expectations, confusion, an uncertain future and the sundry other problems an average teenager's life are pounded with. For all her brilliance, Susanna has the undeniable gift of the cynic and the pessimist, who still hasn't made up her mind about life's meaning and is upset about it. She has the nagging feeling that her character is incomplete and gets caught in the depressing vortex of tendencies that earn her the title of, what we're later told, a border line personality. An almost successful but unintentional suicide attempt lands her in the footsteps of Claymoore, a mental instituition. In the confined borders of the instituition, Susanna is surprised to discover how well she identifies with the pain and flaws of fellow inmates. Here, the atmosphere is sans any prejudice or cliches. Here, everyone is a victim one way or the other. Far from the deplorable world outside the instituition, susanna feels that she's finally home. And it is this atmosphere that slowly gives way to the realisation of her actual needs, her character and her purpose.

In the first half of the film, the director employs an interesting technique of fusing two different scenes and establishing a coherence that not only takes the story forward but at the same time tells us what is already past. Apart from Susanna and maybe Lisa, few characters are generously sketched. This, although, doesn't allow the loosening of the plot's grip on you. Furthermore, the institution is projected in a more agreeable light and the resultant sympathy for the characters ( unlike 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest') does not coincide with an abhorrence towards the angle of treatment. The movie does lead the viewer to understand the plight of the inmates, but not with the object of establishing the reasons that led to their condition. Rather it concentrates on the way these girls face their fate, day in and day out. It also highlights the way the girls identify with each others problems, hopes and desires in a fashion that alternates between being poignant and amusing.

Perhaps the most distinct factor about the movie is the exemplary performances put up by a cast that mostly comprises of females. I haven't seen a film that could hold its own without a single male lead, as good as this movie does. Winona Ryder is very convincing as Susanna. Angelina Jolie delivers so well that I am having a hard time getting over the fact that she agreed to Lara Croft. Whoopi Goldberg is good but her role is regrettably restricted. Constrained performances by all the actresses make this film worthy of being watched. It is funny, sad, mischievous and optimistic all at the same time.

Watch it if you can for it is very unlikely that you would get disappointed. Like I said it is quite likeable!

This is definitely one of the best films to deal with life inside a mental institution. This was the career maker for Angelina Jolie and it solidified Wynona Ryder's career. The person I really enjoyed in this film was Britanny Murphy as Daisy. She was a person who had a tough exterior but after you chipped away at that shell there was really a fragile little girl underneath. This film is definitely something I would watch again.

The absolute best thing about this film are the knockout performances by it's 2 main stars Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie though both characters (hence performances) are very different they stand out nonetheless. It seems to me to be somewhat easier to play a psychotic than to play a regular neurotic, so who really has the better portrayal of the two?

Brittany Murphy as "Daisy" shines in her scenes. She is a force to reckon with in her future film career.

James Mangold directed this film quite nicely from a very good screenplay; he managed to portray all these young women as young women in turmoil. No melodrama, no over the top sentimentality, just a frank peek into their tumultuous lives.

It is a heavy drama, so be forewarned! And a very moving drama at that.