Girl, Interrupted (1999) - A Review ... Sort Of

"I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside"

This movie is based off the book of the same title written by Susanna Kaysen from her experiences of time spent in a mental health facility in the late 60's. The movie stars Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar for best supporting actress for the part. Susanna disillusioned with her life tries to commit suicide and is sent to a mental health facility in order to rest and get her life back on track.

This happens to be one of my favorite movies for a number of reasons and times watched are probably in the hundreds. The way the film portrays the hospital is very realistic at least in my experiences except for the bowling alley but the casual day to day living to the brief moments of excitement are typical in todays mental health wards. Most people are under the impression that the majority of your time is either spent in bed or dealing with some person of the therapeutic team but actually a very high percentage of your day is spent with fellow patients and over time relationships develop somewhat similar to the movie. There are patients who dominate the ward in terms of personality then those who just go along with what is happening then the rest who try to interact with the group as little as possible.

There are parts of the movie that don't make any sense to me such as Lisa being capable of leaving a high security floor and then able to get Susanna to leave with her, escapes are so rare off a high security floor that when they do happen they make the newspaper and the television but mind you things have changed in the last thirty years. Another part that I found odd is the number of patients who remained there during Susanna's two years there and no new patients coming off of the ward as in todays facilities the population is constantly changing and outside of a few exceptions long term stays especially in years are pretty rare, the hospital in North Bay Ontario still has a few patients who receive lobotomies back in the sixties but these people have no chance at recovery due to the mid evil treatment they received a long time ago. Long term patients can be looked at from two perspectives and they are A)The mental disorder is so extreme it is beyond medication and therapy so the person would be a threat in society B) The staff of the facility is so incompetent that they are unfamiliar with the concept of psychology to make a sick person well again - there are horror stories that come out of state hospitals in the USA that prove this theory by instead of promoting positive they would repeatedly try to beat the bad out of someone to make them well, most state hospitals have been closed over the last decade and a lot of potential patients are ending up in the prison system.

Through out the cast or patients there are a wide variety of mental disorders present from being gay to a eating disorder to a chronological liar to mental retardation which would not land you in a mental facility at least not for long. Being gay might be a mental illness or it might not decides which side of the fence you are on but either way it will not land you in a facility in the hopes of "curing" someone. Eating disorders now have their own systems and only last a few days for the most part until a specialized bed opens up in a treating center which is not to say that there are not people with eating disorders in the hospital because they are but it is normally a symptom or reaction of another disorder that is being treated. Chronological liar to my knowledge is a personality disorder but I have never crossed a person with this disorder while in a facility as I don't think they pose much harm to the community and normally if their lies hit a grand scale they will end up in jail before a hospital. Mental retardation is evident to some degree in a hospital but again at least in Canada the majority of people with severe enough disabilities reside in group homes unless they enter a psychotic episode then they are brought to a hospital setting. Again these disorders and how they are treated are more a sign of the times then an error by the director.

Susanna's diagnose of Borderline Personality Disorder is rather weak in my opinion as for the most part I can not see it. It is clear that she has a form of Major Depressive Disorder, self harm issues and a lack of a vision for her self but that is not BPD in my opinion that is just different symptoms of a depressive disorder. Mind you that back in the sixties the definition for BPD is a lot different then it is today.

Lisa's diagnose of a sociopath has left me scratching my head as well as to me she is a true borderline struggling with an inner self image and living in the here and now with no worries of long term consequences. Sociopath or antisocial personality disorder has a lot of tendencies or characteristics that cross over into the borderline personality disorder realm so that is probably what is causing some confusion on my behalf the line I guess is BPD people are aware of the difference between right and wrong where your sociopath does not really bother with it.

I have ordered the book from Amazon and it is due to arrive sometime in February I believe so I am hoping that by the book I will be able to see more of the characteristics of the people on the ward to help join those missing pieces where the questions now lie.

This is a very good movie and if you have not seen it you really should as it shows a mental disorder from the human perspective and the hope and work required to get through a difficult situation.



Tony - "Do you see purple people? My friend, he saw purple people. And so the state came and took him away. He didn't like that. Some time went by and, and he told 'em he didn't see purple people no more.
Susanna - "He got better.
Tony - "Nah, he still sees 'em.