Movie Review: Girl, Interrupted with Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder, Brittany Murphy

Girl, Interrupted is a movie that I never did get the chance to see in the theatre. However, I had the pleasure this evening of seeing it as a Saturday night movie on television.

Girl, Interrupted is in essence about Susannah (played by Ryder). She checks into a mental hospital after a suicide attempt, and is surrounded with a number of other young women who have various disorders.

Initially, Susannah does not really believe she needs to be there, once she meets the "company" she has surrounded herself in. However, now that she is in the program, the hospital is not going to let her go until they determine she is no longer a risk to herself.

Many of the girls that are in this institution do not have the control that Susannah has, so in her fragile state she is a witness to all kinds of disturbing outbursts and reckless behaviour.

As time passes, she gets more comfortable with her surrounding and even starts making some friends. For a time, her behaviour gets more erratic, based on the company she keeps.

Some of the highlights are as follows:

Angelina Jolie: Wow! What a character! I have never seen her in a role quite like this before. She looks completely strung out with her pale skin, and stringy strawberry blonde hair. She is thinner than I have ever seen her, just to complete the look. She plays an overconfident, bullying, psycho that is often causing trouble among her peers, or is intimidating them with her larger than life presence and cutting words. Her character without a doubt stole the show. She is funny, heartbreaking and disturbing all at once.

Susanna: It is hard not to feel empathy for Susanna and throughout the movie, I felt that she didn't belong there. Even though she attempted suicide and needed to be under constant care, it seemed that everyone else was a lot sicker than she was. It was hard to watch her deteriorate in that high stress environment initially. However, she seemed to be better off being there in the end.

All in all, I enjoyed watching Girl, Interrupted. The characters were quite disturbing, which made it engaging. It was also neat to see how Susannah was not stuck there and she did return back to her regular life. Mental health issues definitely have stigmas, so it was a powerful message to see the whole cast of characters and to get to know them, empathize with them and celebrate when they were able to return home.