Girl, Interrupted

Released:  December 21^st, 1999

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Columbia

Starring:  Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, Vanessa Redgrave, Whoopi Goldberg

Directed by:  James Mangold

Written by:  James Mangold, Lisa Loomer, Anna Hamilton Phelan

Personal Bias Alert:  read the book, likes the fuzzy line between sanity and mental illness

8 of 10

            There’s a great chapter in the memoir Girl, Interrupted that captures the way author Susanna Kaysen and her fellow psychiatric patients romanticized and ultimately came to terms with their illnesses.  It’s called Fire, and in four short pages it ruminates on a young woman named Polly who had poured gasoline on herself to “burn it out.”  ‘It’ is never specified, but remains emblematic of their collective pain and fear.  Of course, Kaysen can’t really be sure why Polly did it, but as a device, a way of showing how succumbing to mental illness can seem seductive but will ultimately scar you for life, it’s a brilliant piece of writing.  In adapting the book to the screen, the screenwriters have keyed in on this battle, and when the film hits its stride, it’s as captivating a piece of work as the four pages in Fire.

            As great as the source material is, the unsung hero of this film is casting director Lisa Beach.  Landing the cast, which includes Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Leto, and Whoopi Goldberg to name a few, is impressive, but what makes it heroic is how well each fit into their part.  The two big roles are near-perfect, with Ryder being an obvious choice to play the introspective Kaysen and Jolie being as magnetic as ever as the alleged sociopath Lisa, but it’s the smaller roles by Moss, DuVall, Redgrave, and others who fill in the world around the duo, giving them an arena with weight and substance to do their dangerous tango.

            The dance that these two characters engage in centers around Kaysen’s illness, with her trying to overcome it and Lisa tempting her to succumb to it.  Kaysen comes into the institution on the precipice of this choice, clearly indulging in her pain but unwilling to give up the pleasures of the outside world.  Lisa has already embraced her diagnosis and allowed it to become the focal point of her personality, simultaneously giving her a seductively care-free attitude but also condemning her to a long stay at the institution.  As they become closer, Kaysen is drawn into Lisa’s web of lifers, an almost cult-like subgroup of the patients who follow Lisa unequivocally and never seem to get out.  This dance, as Lisa draws Kaysen closer and closer, is the best part of the film thanks to Ryder and Jolie’s excellent performances and the thematic weight it carries.

            The trouble is that the memoir is pretty light on plot, mostly made up of little ruminations like Fire that lead to great thematic resolutions without a whole lot actually happening.  Most of the exciting goings-on in the film have been invented, because who honestly wants to sit around watching a bunch of young women gabbing on and on in a mental institution for two hours?  Most of these adventures work well enough, including a standout scene with Ryder and Jolie doing an impromptu rendition of Petula Clark’s Downtown that is almost certain to lift your spirit as much as it does Moss’s Polly.  Others, including the ending, go completely off the wall and lose the delicate tone that the rest of the film balances.  In the sweet spot, there’s a dark whimsy to the film, a sense that Kaysen may have found an entrance to Alice’s wonderland that is slowly closing after her.  The parts that don’t work lose this whimsy in favor of pure darkness, and not the sort where you’re seeing someone’s mental illness laid bare.  No, it’s more clunky than that, degrading characters, especially Lisa, into raging devils that spout nasty things simply to give Kaysen the push she needs.  These moments are really glaring errors, and it’s especially detrimental that it ends on one.

            Still, there’s so many things Girl, Interrupted does right, from the aforementioned acting to some stylish edits to a wonderful soundtrack that’s like a precursor to the hipster classic Garden State, that it’s easy to forgive the film’s flaws.  It’s really the moments that work, where Jolie is draining every ounce of her intense charm and the line between the girl’s sanity and insanity is wavering, that sticks in your mind.

            Other Notes:

Ø  Jeffrey Tambor looked remarkably like Dr. Phil.

Ø  DP Jack Green has a very interesting filmography, working on films like Twister, The Bridges of Madison County, Unforgiven, 50 First Dates, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Ø  “Have you ever… stolen something when you have the cash?”  Winona Ryder has!