By Navya Sahay
Having had a long day, I sat down and tried to relax in the only way I knew how to: watch a film. Unfortunately, instead of watching a relaxing, light-hearted comedy, which I should have done in retrospect to reduce my stress, I decided to watch Girl Interrupted. I had heard of it and of Angelina Jolie's Oscar win that it is naturally associated with. I was curious to see her performance and also the subject matter of Girl Interrupted was intriguing. A girl who thinks about death. A bottle of aspirin. A mental facility. And chaos. It was interesting no doubt. Other than that it had the very attractive feature of being marked 18+. Because of ahem, nudity, drugs, etc. Feeling unusually rebellious, I watched it that fateful night.
The film focuses on the character: Susanna (played by Winona Ryder), a confused 18 years old who consumes a bottle of aspirin to kill herself. Though she claims otherwise. In fact throughout most of the film she denies being suicidal at the least. Her parents send her to Claremont: a mental facility for troubled people. There she meets several erratic characters including Georgina: a pathological liar, Daisy; a girl with an odd obsession with chickens (more on that later) Polly; a schizophrenia patient, etc. They are all unusual in some way or the other. The actors do a good job in depicting mentally ill patients, with the slight exaggeration that we have come to expect from films. Enter Lisa (played by Jolie); the leader, the "craziest" of them all as some would say. She quickly becomes friends with Susanna, after a scary first meeting.
The film is dramatic and big, so it can't possibly be uninteresting. We get snippets of the lives of patients living in mental hospitals and how they interact with each other. At first, the nurses and the staff are all treated as part of an establishment that the patients must fight against. They must resist with Lisa leading the way. This sort of viewpoint gives layers to the film, which I liked because it made the patients seem very humane and relatable. Jolie is a marvel to watch, she effortlessly steals the show and you can't help liking her character, despite the fact that she is bonkers. The spasms and twitches and other quirks are excellently portrayed by each actor with strong use of body language. Winona Ryder gives a strong performance as usual. But you can't help question why her character is there in the first place. She seems relatively normal compared to the rest of the characters. There are glimpses of a backstory, but there are too many things implied, not enough revealed. Lisa too, despite Jolie's remarkable performance, does not have enough character development. Each of the supporting characters have one-dimensional storylines and not enough buildup if something is revealed. Their struggles should be more focused on to give the story a clearer purpose. Even when Susanna kisses Lisa, it doesn't amount to anything. It's just a suggestion of possible romance and then immediately the climax is forced upon the audience. Lisa and Susanna run away and seek shelter in Daisy's home. Daisy has gotten out of the mental facility by her father. Even though she has not improved significantly. She still eats only the chicken her father sends her, mounds and mounds of it. She takes medicines to control this unhealthy obsession. But she escaped and Lisa and Susanna go to her. Lisa goes and then pushes Daisy's buttons about how she only got out and is living so well in a nice house because her father gets sexual favors out of her. And the worst part is that Daisy likes it. She likes the chickens and enjoys the favors. These are serious implications, but they are too sudden. Daisy's character is too little explored for this to suddenly all spill out. The next day, Susanna finds Daisy has committed suicide. She was already depressed and cutting herself to begin with, but it is shown that Lisa pushed her off the edge.
There needs to be more depth, more character exploration for such a climax to be built. It feels rushed. Because of Daisy's death, Susanna leaves Lisa and returns to the mental facility to be treated. She is no longer the angry, rebellious woman she was before, but a shaken, hopeful 18 year old. Some of the plot points do not seem authentic enough as the character shift and complete reversal of Susanna is too fast and her hugging the nurse Valeria may be a bit too much. We also still don't get enough backstory as to what led her to be depressed in the first place. Also, if only Lisa was explored more. Her character development does reach some resolution in the end, but there has to be more buildup. Also sometimes the characters are too exaggerated and not representative of what real mental illness looks like. Nevertheless, the film takes on a positive message about recovery, and Susanna's reflection, in the end, is empowering as she leaves the facility, fully cured. However, there are some ugly messages about mental health buried in there too. Like when the nurse Valerie tells Susanna that she is not really depressed, but rather a self-indulgent girl who is driving herself crazy. This is an insensitive thing to say and may give the wrong message about mental health. . Also the doctor's implications about Susanna's sex life are too judgmental. However, I liked the fact that the director chose to show Susanna's empowering feminist response to that in which she calls them out on their slut-shaming and laments the double standards that society expects.
Overall, I liked the film, despite its flaws. The performances were excellent and the concept compelling. The film also manipulated the voice of the characters cleverly as the audiences were given to understand that you could never quite trust what they were saying. The unreliable narrators made for an interesting watch. I won't deny that. But I also think it needs a stronger direction to tie in the loose ends and more authentic plot lines, instead of just those meant for showiness could have made this film more meaningful. If you are looking for a thrilling, dramatic film, though, you won't be disappointed. And if nothing else, you should just watch it for Jolie's performance.
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