Topic > ""Girl, Interrupted": Movie Review

This article is about a very interesting movie called Girl, Interrupted. I am happy to write this article, because this movie inspired me a lot when I saw it for the first time. Being psychologists, this movie is a must watch because it contains many important points that every psychologist must know. The movie Girl, Interrupted very beautifully portrays the life of patients in a mental institution a psychological drama goes like this: Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned" Get an Original Essay In the spring of 1967, while everyone else in his senior class seems to be making plans for college. , Susanna consumes a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of vodka. “My hands have no bones,” she observes. Soon, with the urging of her family, she committed herself to Claymoore, a high-level psychiatric institution. of personality", they say the shrinks. A supervising nurse played by Whoopi Goldberg offers her own diagnosis: "You're a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who's driving herself crazy." Winona Ryder plays Susanna Kaysen, whose real-life memoir tells of how she lost two years of her life by stumbling onto the psychiatric conveyor belt. While mental illness is real and terrifying, the film argues that perfectly healthy people like Susanna can be institutionalized simply because once inside the system there is an assumption that there is something wrong with them. Goldberg's nurse has seen this process taking place and warns Susanna, “Don't drop anchor here.” But Susanna fits easily into the Claymoore cocoon, where other women include a rebellious misfit named Lisa (Angelina Jolie), a roommate named Georgina (Clea Duvall) who would like to live in the land of Oz, the burned Polly (Elisabeth Moss) and the tormented Daisy (Brittany Murphy). The staff is led by a bureaucrat (Jeffrey Tambor) and an intelligent but aloof psychiatrist (Vanessa Redgrave). The film unfolds episodically. Themes appear occasionally, but not consistently; the film is mostly about character and behavior, and while there are individual scenes of powerful acting, there doesn't seem to be a destination. This is why the conclusion is so unsatisfying: the story, having failed to provide itself with character conflicts that can be resolved with drama, instead turns into melodrama. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay One problem is the ambivalent nature of Susanna's condition (“ambivalent” is one of her favorite words). She is not disturbed enough to require treatment, but she is strangely absorbed inside Claymoore, as if it provides her with structure and entertainment that she lacks on the outside. Certainly Lisa is an inspiration, with her cool self-confidence masking deep wounds. Instead of being in a women's dorm at college, Susanna is in a women's dorm at Claymoore, where her subject of study is herself. Susanna is therefore not a prisoner of an evil system but seduced by an inattentive system, and there is a temptation to suspect that she deserves what she gets. Works Cited Davis, L. (2003). Girl, Interrupted: The Book and the Movie. Film Criticism, 27(1), 49-64.Frank, L. (2004). Girl, Interrupted: Women Writing About Mental Illness. New York, NY: Random House. Kaysen, S. (1994). Girl, interrupted. New York, NY: Vintage.Kaysen, S. (1999). The camera my mother gave me. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Kaysen, S. (2000). Girl, Interrupted (movie tie-in edition)., 32(2), 50-58.