Girl, Interrupted (1999)

GIRL, INTERRUPTED is another feel-badder.  Two long hours of Winona 
Ryder chain-smoking through her stay a private psychiatric hospital,  
circa 1968.  She's plays a distressed, depressed borderline-person-
ality patient, new to the ward and whose made a fast friend in an 
oft-escaped, show-running sociopath played by a chesty, blonde-lock-
ed Angelina Jolie.  (And, frankly, whose aforementioned attributes 
look a *world* more real than those large-assed lips!)  They bond 
and being mayhem-making together, though with the film firmly focus-
ed on Ryder and her character's slowly evolving progress.  There are 
other patients, too, who get enough total screen time as to make the 
film feel more meandering than it should.  (Other incidental charac-
ters are at times confusing, like a love interest who appears to 
mean more to Ryder's character than we're initially led to believe.)  
The film even makes Whoopi, with the former Oscar host doing a 
straight (but regrettably straight-laced) turn as the head nurse.  
For psych students, eh, maybe this one's a must-see.  For the rest 
of us, the CUCKOO'S NEST-style fireworks are few and far-between.  
Not much in the way of equitable emotional impact, either.  Sure, 
both Ryder and Jolie are as good as they come.  Just don't be sur-
prised if you start wishing to be *consciousness* interrupted...  
Directed by James Mangold (COP LAND), who also co-wrote the screen-
play with Lisa Loomer and Anna Hamilton Phelan, based on the book by 
Susanna Kaysen.  With Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy, Elizabeth Moss, 
Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, and Vanessa Redgrave.  (Rated "R"/127 
min.)

Grade: C+

Copyright 2000 Michael J. Legeros
Movie Hell is a trademark of Michael J. Legeros

Originally posted to triangle.movies as MOVIE HELL: Gee Eye

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