Girl,Interrupted

‘How much will you indulge in your flaws?’-Dr Wick

Girl, Interrupted (1999) inspired loosely by the memoirs of Susanna Kaysen is a psychological thriller that follows Susanna (Winona Ryder) throughout her stay at a Claymore psychiatric hospital, after an attempt at suicide, although she strongly denies that is what it was.

Upon initial arrival to Claymore Susanna maintains that she is not crazy and will be leaving soon but Dr Melvin Potts (Jeffrey Tambor) who works in the hospital suggests that she has borderline personality disorder. While trying to navigate this she begins to become friends with patients in the hospital, most notably Lisa (Angelina Jolie), the longest resident of the clinic who is considered a sociopath. Susanna becomes attached to Lisa and begins to follow what Lisa does such as not taking her medication, sneaking out of her room at night and at one point even running away with , to the new Disneyland Florida.

On their way to Florida they stop by the new home of ex patient Daisy (Brittany Murphy) to get money from her and a place to stay for the night and although Daisy lets them stay Lisa pushes her buttons much like she did in Claymore and reveals her incestuous relationship with her father. This drives Daisy over the edge and she hangs herself. After seeing this Susanna becomes traumatised and calls an ambulance but Lisa is cold to the situation and tells her Daisy was ‘waiting for an excuse’.

After this moment Susanna no longer sees Lisa on such a high pedestal as before and returns to the hospital alone becoming a model patient dedicating her time to her writing and drawing.

Although the film has a much darker ending than the one I’ve left with I wanted to consider Susanna’s diagnosis as, it’s Susanna’s reaction to the death of Daisy and her willingness to go back to the hospital that she was originally sure she had no place in that indicates to me that she didn’t have borderline personality disorder as she was able to exhibit empathy on this and other occasions and that, instead her at times volatile behaviour is more reflective of a girl trying to find herself as she admittedly has not many girl friends or any at all as her stay in Claymore offered her a situation where she was able to develop and understand herself.

One question that I have about the film is its title ‘Girl, Interrupted’, as despite initially thinking going to Claymore interrupted Susanna’s life it offered her the time and space to figure out who she was, so how was she interrupted? Even though the film is based on the memoirs of Susanna Kaysen, who titled her novel ‘Girl, Interrupted’ after seeing the Vermeer painting ‘Girl Interrupted At Her Music’, it is so loosely begging the question does the title have the same intention for the film, or should it have been changed?

Nevertheless I found the film to be very successful as a thriller as the story had more plot twists than expected plus the renowned performance of Angelina Jolie made the film one to remember.