Girl, Interrupted
Based on writer Susanna Kaysen’s account of her 18-month stay at a mental hospital in the 1960s.
- Director:James Mangold
- Genre:Biography / Drama
- Runtime:127 minutes
Cast
Winona Ryder : Susanna Kaysen
Angelina Jolie : Lisa Rowe
Clea DuVall : Georgina Tuskin (as Clea Duvall)
Brittany Murphy : Daisy Randone
Elisabeth Moss : Polly ‘Torch’ Clark
Susanna Kaysen (Ryder), 18 years old in April 1967, “voluntarily” (her parents essentially force her to go there, and she is not free to leave until the staff approves her release) checks herself into the fictitious Claymoore Hospital (based on McLean Hospital, the actual institution featured in the memoir), after an overdose of aspirin, and her stay extends for over a year.
She befriends fellow patients Polly “Torch” Clark (Elisabeth Moss), a burn victim; Georgina Tuskin (Clea DuVall), a pathological liar; Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), a sexually abused girl with an eating disorder and who cuts herself; Janet Webber (Angela Bettis), an anorexic; Cynthia (Jillian Armenante), whose only disorder seems to be a proclivity to dress like men and is there because her parents don’t want to see her; and others, and forms a small troupe of troubled women in her ward. Susanna is enchanted in particular by Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), who has been diagnosed as a sociopath (as in the book, it is left to interpretation whether she actually is one). Lisa is a force to be reckoned with: she is magnetic, rebellious, won’t take her medication and verbally abuses the other patients. Lisa befriends Susanna and together they start causing trouble. Lisa encourages Susanna to stop taking her medications and/or trade them with others, and generally resist the influences of therapy (referred to by the patients as “ther-rape-me”).
During a visit outside the ward at a nearby ice cream shop, Susanna is confronted by her mother’s friend, the angry wife of a man Susanna had an affair with. The woman harshly berates Susanna, but Lisa intervenes with a verbal assault, horrifying the older woman. Lisa then encourages an uprising among the girls, resulting in everyone barking like dogs. As a result, Lisa loses her outside privileges.
Susanna’s former boyfriend, Tobias “Toby” Jacobs (Jared Leto), comes to visit her and she tries to have sex with him in her room. He tells her he wants them to run away to Canada together so that he doesn’t have to go to Vietnam. He tells her she isn’t crazy and that the girls in the asylum aren’t really her friends. But she refuses to go with him, subconsciously beginning to rely on Lisa. This confrontation shows Susanna’s progress in her recovery, as it marks the first time that she admits she had tried to kill herself. Read more
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