Are You With Us?: Girl, Interrupted
By Ryan Mazie
December 21, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
For being a Jolie fan, I surprised myself, realizing that I have never seen the movie. But then again, a 1960s female-driven drama set in a mental asylum didn’t really sound all that enticing (but if you replace "drama" with "stylized action pic," then hello Sucker Punch!).
Originally supposed to be a showcase vehicle for Winona Ryder, it was hijacked by Jolie’s powerfully chilling performance that makes for one of movie’s most memorable villains (Angelina’s character of Lisa Rowe I find to be strangely absent from best villain lists). After seeing a character commit suicide, Lisa is indifferent to the hanging body of one of her ward mates and says, “Oh, what an idiot,” before picking her wallet (while she is still hanging). That’s some cold stuff.
Set in a private mental institution, Ryder plays Susanna Kaysen, a high school graduate with no intentions of going to college or fitting into societal norms. After a failed suicide attempt (chasing down a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka), Susanna, at the advice of her doctor, goes on an extended “rest,” signing herself into Claymore mental institution.
Filled with a girl who set herself on fire (Elisabeth Moss), a Daddy’s girl who can not eat in public (Brittany Murphy), a pathological liar (Clea DuVall), and a sociopath who runs the facility (Angelina Jolie), it is clear that Susanna does not have a problem in the company of these women. I found myself frequently asking throughout the movie whether Susanna even has a mental problem at all (she gets diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder).
Susanna does not want to leave the facility, forming a family with the girls, although in retrospect she realizes she wasted a year of her life lingering in the halls of Claymore.
Ambivalent is Susanna’s favorite word. And that is the word that can describe much of the film’s plot. I found the free-flowing, time jumping “plot structure,” to really go nowhere. Sure, it traces Susanna’s journey, but what does that really amount to when she is not mentally incompetent, but just a girl refusing to let go of adolescence to begin with?
The script reads more like Susanna’s diary entries than a novel (Ryder has a voice over where she reads her character’s generic epiphanies). In fact, I was surprised to see that Girl, Interrupted was based off of a memoir and Ryder’s Susanna Kaysen is actually a real woman (the author of the titular memoir). I guess to say that I found it surprising that this was a true story is an insult. Kaysen sure did, being a detractor of the film, saying that she “hated it” for being full of “melodramatic drivel.” She has a point. Whoopi Goldberg as the inspiration-spouting Nurse Valerie (because all of these types of films must has a wise, old figure) calls Claymore a “five-star resort.” I couldn’t agree more. Filled with more glitz than grit, Girl, Interrupted is too mainstream for its own good.
Co-scripted by director James Mangold (Knight & Day, 3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line), who I find underrated given his reliable track record, Girl, Interrupted neither conveys the feeling of rejection nor the moments of hopelessness experienced in a mental institution. What we get is girl bonding in hospital gowns.
Ryder, who produced the film and was attached to it for over seven years, delivers a fine performance. However, being thrown in as a shy girl who is less mental than ambivalent against characters with bigger than life personalities, she doesn’t hold her own - especially since she largely co-stars next to the biggest personality of all – Lisa Rowe. Jolie steals Ryder’s thunder. Even with significantly less screen time, Jolie is the one person people come away from this movie talking about.
Witnessing her getting lost in the role, Jolie is superb as the sociopathic Rowe, scarily heartless. Prior to Girl, Jolie mainly played the girl-to-look-at role, but the part of Lisa catapulted her in to a different light. I find it interesting to imagine what roles Jolie would have taken later if it weren’t for her next two movies (Gone in 60 Second and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), which launched her into being one of Hollywood’s most consistently bankable (especially in terms of action movies that are dominated by men) stars.
Critics were split on the film. Ranking in at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes (40% among Top Critics), I was surprised how low the score was. Sure, the film is Hollywood-fied and skimps on some details, especially in terms of psychiatric evaluations and what the hell the title even means, but by and large I enjoyed it – especially the performances, which seem to be the one high note mentioned throughout the reviews.
Even though the film was given the cold shoulder by critics, the Best Supporting Actress win at the Oscars goes to show how strong Jolie’s performance was. It was the movie’s only nomination. She swept the Golden Globes and SAG Awards as well.
The bad reviews didn’t bode well for its box office. Released in nine theaters, Girl, Interrupted opened in 37th place with a so-so $10,599 per theater average. It didn’t break $1 million by the time it went wide in mid-January to the tune of nearly $9 million in 1,902 theaters. Not sticking around for long enough to take advantage of the free promotion from its few award wins, Interrupted topped out at $28.9 million ($45.3 million adjusted) against a $40 million budget.
Told from an interesting perspective of young women, Girl, Interrupted should have easily differentiated itself from other films taking place in mental institutions. However, since it is chock full of plot clichés, has a saggy middle, and suffers from a slightly anticlimactic final showdown between Lisa and Susanna, Girl, Interrupted has to rely on its strong performances to bolster it above Lifetime material (a channel you can catch the movie on quite frequently).
Better than the reputation it has been given, Girl, Interrupted is emotionally moving even though the plot remains more static than one would desire. For a movie taking place in the loony bin, I wish that James Mangold would loosen his directorial reigns and make things more … crazy.
Verdict: With Us
8 out of 10