Girl, Interrupted (film)
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| Girl, Interrupted | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | James Mangold |
| Produced by | Douglas Wick Winona Ryder |
| Written by | Susanna Kaysen James Mangold Lisa Loomer |
| Starring | Winona Ryder Angelina Jolie Clea DuVall Brittany Murphy Elisabeth Moss Travis Fine Jared Leto with Vanessa Redgrave and Whoopi Goldberg |
| Music by | Mychael Danna |
| Cinematography | Jack N. Green |
| Editing by | Kevin Tent |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 14, 2000 |
| Running time | 127 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $24 million |
| Gross revenue | $28,871,000 |
| IMDb • Allmovie | |
Girl, Interrupted is a 2000 film drama about a teen's 18-month stay at a mental institution, and stars Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. It was adapted from the original memoir Girl, Interrupted, written by Susanna Kaysen. The film was directed by James Mangold. The screenplay was written by James Mangold and Lisa Loomer. The original musical score was composed by Mychael Danna. The film is rated R by the MPAA, for strong language and content relating to drugs, sexuality, and suicide.
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This article describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. |
Susanna Kaysen (Ryder), 18 years old in April 1967, voluntarily checks herself into the fictitious Claymoore Hospital (based on McLean Hospital, the actual institution featured in the memoir), after an overdose of aspirin and vodka. Nurse Valerie Owens ([Whoopi Goldberg]) is in charge of the ward Susanna is in. Kaysen is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends for over a year.
She befriends fellow patients Polly "Torch" Clark (Elizabeth Moss), a burn victim; Georgina Tuskin (Clea DuVall), a pathological liar; Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), a sexually abused girl who has an eating disorder and who cuts herself; Janet Webber (Angela Bettis), an anorexic; Cynthia, whose only disorder seems to be a proclivity to dress like man; and others, and forms a small troupe of troubled women in her ward. Susanna is enchanted in particular by the sociopathic Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), the wildest and most hardened of the group. Lisa is a force to be reckoned with: she is magnetic, rebellious, won't take her medication and verbally abuses the other patients by pushing their buttons on a regular basis. 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 diag-nonsense).
During a visit outside the ward at a nearby soda 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, conservative woman. Lisa then encourages an uprising amongst 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.
Time passes, and a night comes when Polly awakes screaming "My face, my face!" The nurses remove her and place her into solitary confinement with the intention of calming her down, but she continues sobbing. Troubled, Susanna (with the help of Lisa's keys) steals a guitar and they sit outside Polly's room, singing. Eventually, staff members notice. When an orderly (John, Susanna's friend: Travis Fine) walks by, she pulls him to the ground and kisses him.
The next morning, Susanna is called into the office, where she is analyzed once more. Susanna meets the head psychiatrist, Dr. Sonia Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), and tells her that she is ambivalent. However, Dr. Wick sees through her tough girl facade and decides to have Susanna be her patient from now on. Then Lisa is taken in to see the doctor but doesn't return, and Susanna falls into a depression. The frustrated Nurse, Valerie, has had enough and throws Susanna into a cold bath to wake her. After Susanna attacks her verbally Valerie tells Susanna that she doesn't know what she's doing; that "she is a spoiled, lazy little girl who is driving herself crazy!" She adds that if Susanna isn't careful she'll "throw her life away."
Lisa and Susanna break out of Claymoore with the intention of going to work at Walt Disney World Resort as Cinderella and Snow White. They spend the night at the house of the recently released Daisy, who Lisa antagonizes in her usual fashion, berating her about her incestuous relationship with her father, and accusing her of enjoying it. Daisy hangs herself the next morning. Lisa shows no remorse for her actions while Susanna is distraught. Lisa flees, while Susanna calls the police and returns to the hospital. Susanna also adopts Daisy's pet cat Ruby. In the next few weeks, she begins to cooperate with her doctors responds to her therapy. She is scheduled to be released.
At that point, Lisa is caught and returned by the police. Upon finding out about Susanna's pending release, Lisa targets Susanna for ridicule and emotional abuse. On her last night, Susanna awakens to discover Lisa in the maze of corridors beneath the ward, reading Susanna's diary to the other girls, including all of the comments she has made about the other residents. The other girls turn on Susanna, with Lisa particularly vicious. In the ensuing dispute, Lisa threatens to stab herself with a large hypodermic needle, but Susanna disarms her. Susanna then launches a pointed verbal attack upon Lisa, telling her that no one cares if Lisa dies because she "already is dead" and her "heart is cold", and that Susanna will start her life again out of the hospital without Lisa and everyone else. Her words having hit home, and Lisa undergoes a mental breakdown.
Susanna is released the next day. Before she leaves, she visits Lisa and talks to her again. Lisa says "I'm not really dead". Susanna reassures Lisa that she knows, and that Lisa, a resident at the hospital for eight years, will get out eventually and come see her. As Susanna leaves, she says goodbye to all her friends, giving Polly her adopted cat Ruby, and gets into the cab, insightfully saying, "Crazy isn't about being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It's you, or me, Amplified..."
At the end of the film, Susanna states that by the 1970s, most of her friends were released. Although the movie doesn't elaborate on this, the book reveals that both Georgina and Lisa were later released.
- Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen
- Angelina Jolie as Lisa Rowe
- Clea DuVall as Georgina Tuskin
- Brittany Murphy as Daisy Randone
- Elisabeth Moss as Polly "Torch" Clark
- Travis Fine as John
- Jared Leto as Tobias "Toby" Jacobs
- Jeffrey Tambor as Dr. Melvin Potts
- Vanessa Redgrave as Dr. Sonia Wick
- Whoopi Goldberg as Valerie Owens, RN
- Angela Bettis as Janet Webber
- Jillian Armenante as Cynthia Crowley
- Joanna Kerns as Annette Kaysen
- Bruce Altman as Professor Gilcrest
- Mary Kay Place as Barbara Gilcrest
- Ray Baker as Carl Kaysen
- KaDee Strickland as Bonnie Gilcrest
- Larry Graeff as the head grounds keeper
- Kurtwood Smith as Dr. Crumble
The author, Susanna Kaysen, was among the detractors of the film, angered by the "melodramatic drivel" Mangold added to the script by conjuring up many stories that never happened in the book (such as Lisa and Susanna running away together).[1]
- Academy Awards
- Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Angelina Jolie
- Golden Globe Award
- Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Angelina Jolie
- Screen Actors Guild Award
- Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role - Angelina Jolie
Filming took place along Main Street in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, as well as in Harrisburg State Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg was chosen for its old fashioned appearance and its old style drug store simply titled "Drugs," all of which gave the film its time-dated appearance. A shot seen in the trailer shows the van travelling towards downtown Harrisburg over the State Street bridge, where the Capitol building is clearly visible.[2] Deleted scenes were also filmed at Reading's Reading Public Museum.
- Merrilee Rush performing "Angel of the Morning"
- Petula Clark performing "Downtown"
- Skeeter Davis performing "The End of the World"
- Aretha Franklin performing "The Right Time"
- Jefferson Airplane performing "Comin' Back to Me"
- Them performing "It's All Over Now Baby Blue"
- The Chambers Brothers performing "Time Has Come Today'"
- The Band performing "The Weight"
- The Mamas & the Papas performing "Got a Feeling"
- Wilco performing "How To Fight Loneliness"
- Simon & Garfunkel performing "Bookends Theme"
- ^ *Danker, Jared. "Susanna Kaysen, without interruptions", The Justice, February 4, 2003.
- ^ Information on the filming of Girl, Interrupted at Harrisburg State Hospital, including a studio press release on the building and Dorothea Dix.
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Girl, Interrupted |
- Girl, Interrupted at the Internet Movie Database
- Girl, Interrupted at Allmovie
- Girl, Interrupted at Rotten Tomatoes
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