Girl, Interrupted
USA 1999
Reviewed by Liese Spencer
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
New England, 1967. After washing down 50 aspirin with a bottle of vodka, 17-year-old Susanna is sent to Claymore psychiatric hospital. Diagnosed with a "borderline personality disorder" Susanna seems saner than her new friends Lisa (a sociopath), Georgina (a compulsive liar), Daisy (a daddy's girl with an eating disorder) and burns-victim Polly. On the ward, Susanna remembers sleeping with her English teacher and a fellow-student, Tobias.
Tobias turns up one day and tells Susanna he's been drafted. The pair have sex but she turns down his offer to run away to Canada. That night Susanna sleeps with a male nurse and is sent to the head of the hospital the next day. Susanna and Lisa run away together and call in at Daisy's new flat. Lisa confronts Daisy about her father's sexual abuse. The next morning Susanna finds Daisy has hanged herself in the bathroom. Lisa is unrepentant but Susanna returns to the hospital where she recovers and is given a release date. Lisa is hauled back to Claymore. That night, she takes the girls down to the basement, where she reads them extracts from Susanna's diary. Lisa chases Susanna through the corridors taunting her. The next day Lisa is under restraint. Susanna says goodbye before leaving the hospital.
Review
"So many buttons to press," screams Angelina Jolie's sociopath Lisa in Girl, Interrupted, "so why is nobody pressing mine?" Sedated by this sluggish screen adaptation of Susanna Kaysen's 1993 novel, it's easy to sympathise with Lisa's frustration. Perhaps the problem with James Mangold's movie is not that it fails to press the right buttons, it's just they've been worn out with overuse.
In publicity interviews for the film Mangold (director of Heavy and CopLand) admits Kaysen's episodic story "did not translate cinematically." Neither does its mordant wit, which has been compared to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Instead, it's a clumsy cross between an inspirational madness-as-personal-growth drama and a female coming-of-age movie. Attending her "alternative Ivy League", Susanna studies a group of colourfully mad mates who are, of course, more sane than those living in the crazy 60s outside. Patients are force-fed pills. Nurses preach tough love. Basically, it's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, with less character development and more life lessons.
The odd wry observation survives, for instance in the scene where new-girl Susanna is given a rundown on the hospital and its patients by a roommate who ends her comprehensive brief by cheerfully confessing to being a pathological liar. However, for the most part, Mangold's direction is thuddingly conventional. Watching the film-maker's blurred shots of Susanna's Valium vision and the Wizard of Oz imagery he uses to suggest Georgie's "parallel universe", it's easy to see how Hollywood, like Claymore, institutionalises its inmates.
As the film chronicles the day-to-day lives of Claymore's nutty dorm girls (including midnight trips to the underground bowling alley), it sags under the weight of its own inconsequence. Only some electric performances keep the flatlining narrative alive. All doe-eyes and hunched shoulders, executive producer Winona Ryder is perfect as the fragile, solipsistic Susanna. Unfortunately, her bravely unsympathetic performance merely illuminates another problem in the shift from book to screen. On paper Susanna's borderline personality disorder may have offered a subtle exploration of the slim, socially determined line between sanity and madness. On screen she appears merely petulant. When nurse Whoopi Goldberg looks up from under her giant Afro and diagnoses Susanna as a "lazy, self-indulgent little girl driving herself crazy," it's hard not to agree and draw unfavourable comparisons with McMurphy's tragic fight against the system in Cuckoo's Nest.
In Girl, Interrupted it's Jolie who gets to sink her teeth into the Jack Nicholson role, her ferocious Lisa providing a much needed contrast with Ryder's understated sulking. Whether strutting across the screen in a blonde fright wig or waiting for an orderly to light her cigarette, she's a sociopath with star power. No less effective is the sad and spooky Brittany Murphy as Daisy, a blank-eyed abuse victim whose patina of pert domesticity disguises a raging appetite for laxatives and rotisserie chicken. But sadly, even Vanessa Redgrave's deliciously dry cameo as headmistressy shrink Dr Wick can't save the shapeless storyline. And Mangold is forced to bring his realist montage of dance lessons, therapy and definitive 60s television to a close with a contrived climax. As a spectral Jolie chases Ryder through the basement screaming "I'm playing the villain," Girl, Interrupted seems to have sunk into self-parody. All that's left is for Ryder's narrator to press the button marked 'trite' by saying at the end: "They were not perfect but they were my friends."
Credits
- Director
- James Mangold
- Producers
- Douglas Wick
- Cathy Konrad
- Screenplay
- James Mangold
- Lisa Loomer
- Anna Hamilton Phelan
- Based on the book by
- Susanna Kaysen
- Director of Photography
- Jack Green
- Editor
- Kevin Tent
- Production Designer
- Richard Hoover
- Music
- Mychael Danna
- ©Global Entertainment Productions GmbH & Co. Movie KG
- Production Companies
- Columbia Pictures presents
- a Red Wagon production
- Executive Producers
- Carol Bodie
- Winona Ryder
- Co-producer
- Georgia Kacandes
- Associate Producer
- Susanna Kaysen
- Production Supervisor
- Sue McNamara
- Production Co-ordinator
- Lori Spall
- Unit Production Manager
- Georgia Kacandes
- Location Manager
- Mike Fantasia
- 2nd Unit Director
- Alex Rubin
- Assistant Directors
- Cas Donovan
- Dieter Busch
- Kristen Ploucha
- Script Supervisor
- Ronit Ravich-Boss
- Casting
- Lisa Beach
- Local/Extras:
- Sharon Hillegas
- Camera Operator
- Dave Luckenbach
- Special Effects
- Ron Bolanowski
- Art Director
- Jeff Knipp
- Set Designers
- Mary Finn
- Patrick Sullivan
- Set Decorator
- Maggie Martin
- Costume Designer
- Arianne Phillips
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Linda Matthews
- Make-up Supervisor
- Carol Schwartz
- Key Make-up Artist
- Jane Galli
- Prosthetic Make-up Application
- John E. Jackson
- Hair Supervisor
- Kathe Swanson
- Key Hairstylist
- Milton Buras
- Hairstylist
- Gunnar Swanson
- Titles/Opticals
- Cinema Research Corporation
- Featured Musicians
- The Glass orchestra
- Music Conductor/
- Orchestrator
- Nicholas Dodd
- Music Editor
- Thomas Milano
- Scoring Engineers
- Brad Haehnel
- Ron Searles
- Soundtrack
- "Bookends" by Paul Simon, performed by Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel; "The Girl from Ipanema" by Vinícius DeMoraes, Antonio Carlos Jobim, English lyrics by Norman Gimbel, performed by Astrud Gilberto; "Downtown" by Tony Hatch, performed by Petula Clark; "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" by Bob Dylan, performed by Them; "Got a Feelin'" by John Phillips, Denny Doherty, performed by The Mamas & The Papas; "Time Has Come Today" by Willie Chambers, Joseph Chambers, performed by The Chambers Brothers; "Comin' Back to Me" by Marty Balin, performed by Jefferson Airplane; "Que sera sera" by Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, performed by Doris Day; "Moon River" by Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer, performed by 101 Strings; "Angel of the Morning" by Chip Taylor, performed by Merrilee Rush & The Turnabouts; "Ranchito Parade" by/performed by William Loose; "The Right Time" by Lew Herman, performed by Aretha Franklin; "Sleigh Ride" by Leroy Anderson, performed by Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Hayman; "Adeste Fideles" performed by Vienna Boys Choir; "How to Fight Loneliness" by Jeffrey Tweedy, Jay Bennett, performed by Wilco; "The Weight" by Robbie Robertson, performed by The Band; "Roadhouse Blues" by John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, performed by The Doors; "The End of the World" by Sylvia Dee, Arthur Kent, performed by Skeeter Davis; "Forgetting" by Jean Williams, performed by The Feminine Complex; music from "The Wizard of Oz" written by Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg, Herbert Stothart; "Jeannie" by Hugo Montenegro, Buddy Kaye; music from "Father Knows Best" written by Jack Shaindlin; "3:10 to Yuma" by George Duning
- Production Mixer
- Jim Stuebe
- Re-recording Mixers
- Jeffrey J. Haboush
- Bill W. Benton
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Howell Gibbens
- Dialogue Editors
- Hugo Weng
- Michael Benavente
- Sound Effects Editor
- George Anderson
- ADR
- Supervising Editor:
- Elizabeth Kenton
- Foley
- Artists:
- Gary Hecker
- Michael Broomberg
- Mixer:
- Richard Duarte
- Editors:
- Fred Burke
- Gary Wright
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Jennifer Lamb
- Animal/Cat Trainers
- Ursula Brauner
- Michelle Iwamoto
- Film Extract
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- Cast
- Winona Ryder
- Susanna
- Angelina Jolie
- Lisa
- Clea Duvall
- Georgina
- Brittany Murphy
- Daisy
- Elisabeth Moss
- Polly
- Jared Leto
- Tobias Jacobs
- Jeffrey Tambor
- Dr Potts
- Travis Fine
- John
- Jillian Armenante
- Cynthia
- Angela Bettis
- Janet
- Vanessa Redgrave
- Dr Wick
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Valerie
- Drucie McDaniel
- M-G
- Alison Claire
- Gretta
- Christina Myers
- Margie
- Joanna Kerns
- Annette
- Gloria Barnhart
- older catatonic
- Josie Gammell
- Mrs McWilley
- Bruce Altman
- Professor Gilcrest
- Mary Kay Place
- Mrs Gilcrest
- Ray Baker
- Mr Kaysen
- KaDee Strickland
- Bonnie Gilcrest
- Christian Monroe
- Ronny
- Kurtwood Smith
- Dr Crumble
- David Scott Taylor
- Monty Hoover, the cabby
- Janet Pryce
- ER nurse
- C. Scott Grimaldi
- ER resident
- Ginny Graham
- Arleen
- Richard Domeier
- art teacher
- John Kirkman
- Jack
- Sally Bowman
- Maureen
- Misha Collins
- Tony
- John Lumia
- van driver
- Marilyn Brett
- Italian shop keeper
- Alex Rubin
- Josh
- Marilyn Spanier
- Miss Plimack
- Linda Gilvear
- Miss Paisley
- Allen Strange
- principal
- Spencer Gates
- British teacher
- Rebecca Derrick
- Lillian
- Anne Connors
- nurse
- Steve Altes
- medic
- Joe Gerrety
- cop
- Anne Lewis
- dance therapist
- Donny Martino Jr
- naked man
- John Levin
- ER doctor
- Irene Longshore
- Connie
- Katie Rimmer
- Tiffany
- Jonathan Martin Spirk
- tough guy
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 11,449 feet
- 127 minutes 13 seconds
- Dolby/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe