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
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011