Girl, Interrupted

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David F I wanted to watch this film because its title intrigued me. On the face of it it makes no sense, so I wanted to understand when people used the title, or made reference to the film in conversation. The film stars a lovely, shorn Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, (not yet famous). The girls are inmates in an American mental institution, which is exactly the same as most mental institutions in films, especially those (for some reason) run by nuns. Whoopi Goldberg is also present as a nurse, but she's just present. She is a good actress, but sleepwalks through this film. Ryder does better, but Jolie steals the show, her character is really the person the film should be about. The film's treatment of mental illness is not in any sense enlightening, we could be watching Boris Karloff in Asylum or Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. We are told Ryder's character's diagnosis, but she does not exhibit much of anything throughout the film. When one of the patients hangs herself, we don't care, because the character has not been built in a way that makes us interested in her. Worth a watch, mainly for the three lead actresses, but ultimately unmoving. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 12/23/24 Full Review Marcelo oliveira c Esse filme, apesar de ser confuso e previsível, tem atuações intensas! Com performances impecáveis como a as de Brittany Murphy e Angelina Jolie, que vivem intensamente o personagem. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 11/30/24 Full Review Kirill M Яссификация «Пролетая над гнездом кукушки». Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 10/05/24 Full Review Fabrícia F A imersão nessa experiência vista sob a perspectiva de pacientes de uma instituição psiquiátrica é muito interessante. Personagens com dramas pessoais que refletem a realidade. Vale a pena assistir. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 09/22/24 Full Review Ben D The “mental institution” is a natural setting for incubating strong performances, for, by default, it offers a range of emotions, idiosyncrasies, power imbalances, and unreliable characters. Susanna (Winona Ryder) is stuck (of her own accord) in one such institution after a suicide attempt. She’s from a privileged background, but isn’t going full Patty Hearst or anything and just wants a future different from that of her mother. In the institution, Susanna meets and befriends women with all sorts of afflictions, including, but not limited to, pathological lying, sexual trauma, self-harm, schizophrenia, sociopathy, laxative addiction, bipolar disorder, et al. While the parallels to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are obvious, this is a much different movie when it comes to the conflict. Here, Susanna flirts with rebellion against the institution — typically anthropomorphized through Nurse Owens (Whoopi Goldberg) — but is really engaged in an eternal battle over the influences of a fellow patient, Lisa (Angelina Jolie). Everyone already knows Jolie’s performance steals the show, and while I’d seen Girl, Interrupted already (probably 15 years ago or so), I had no recollection of how good she truly is in this movie. A lesser performance could’ve made the story delve into stereotype after stereotype shepherded by the big girl on campus. But instead, Jolie plays Lisa as a menacing, charismatic leader. Someone who the women want to admire from a distance, only complying with her demands for adventure when they have sufficiently fallen under her spell. Lisa is a bully. Lisa is a villain. Lisa is the reason you watch this movie, despite the excellent ensemble cast. It seems like every other scene the women are breaking curfew, journeying to abandoned wings of the institution, and even breaking out with zero resistance at will. While Claymoore may be the least secure mental institution in American history, its porous walls permit our characters to drift, explore, and follow their leader. RT (53/84) is shocking. I’m with the audience on this one. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 09/18/24 Full Review Sams K Underrated af! Perfect acting and a very well-done screenplay. A very important work about mental illness and life inside asylums and mentally illness structures. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/06/24 Full Review Read all reviews

Girl, Interrupted

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