Girl Interrupted Film Criticism

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/1999/12/20/girl
         "But you can almost feel Mangold's panic when he feels the story might be losing steam: It wouldn't have been enough just to have the girls interacting with each other during their commitment; they have to have adventures, too. And Ryder, whose performance consists almost solely of turning on that wide-eyed, bewildered-doe look, gets her big moment in an embarrassingly overplayed scene where she confronts Nurse Whoopi with a flurry of heartless, nasty insults."


         I agree with some of these comments, in the part where they say most of the movie is shown with the girls communicating, and that there should have been a little bit more adventure. Because, having read the book, it seems like more action happened, while in the movie mostly Lisa did the action. However, I disagree with the "overplayed scene" because the girls are supposed to be portrayed as lunatics, so that's how the event should take place.   
         
"But "Girl, Interrupted" is always worth watching when Angelina Jolie steps to the fore. Somehow, she takes a thuddingly ill-conceived role and turns it into gold: Lisa is the bruised and beautiful troubled doll who's unfailingly charismatic (when she lifts a cigarette to her lips, a nurse stands at the ready with a lighter), the restless girl who's always trying to escape from the confines of the hospital, who blurts out the blunt observations no one wants to hear" 


         I agree with this critic, Angelina Jolie's character as Lisa is what leads the other girls to do most of what they did. She was the crazy one, escaping and telling Susanna how to do things. At the point where Daisy hung herself, Lisa just went took her money and left. She didn't care that Daisy had killed herself.                 

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/dvd/review/2000/10/03/girl_interrupted
         "The main problem with the film is that it looks like it started out as an ensemble picture and then ended up as a star vehicle for Ryder and Jolie. The brief sketches of the other girls who live in the institution scream for more attention: There's a pathological liar obsessed with the "Wizard of Oz," one who tried to burn her face off and another who is a (presumably) perfectly sane lesbian who has been shut away because she likes women."


         I agree with this comment, the film starts with a picture of something dark, and at the end Susanna is on the cab leaving the hospital. The film also portrays the main characters exactly as shown in the movie.          

"he tried to use "The Wizard of Oz" as a model to get away from traditional nut house dramas like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and how he had his production department tie leaves to trees in order to make the seasons change outside the grim institution."


         I also noticed the Wizard of Oz come into play when Georgina was reading the book. Also, theres a few camera shot in which it starts up at the trees and goes down to the hospital, same way when Susanna was leaving her home she looked back and saw her mom through an angle of two trees. Same when she was leaving the hospital, from the back window of the cab there were the images of trees. 

Girl Interrupted Film

The setting of the film starts out dark
While the movie begins, there is Susanna speaking in the background as the camera does a close-up on her face to show her emotions as to how she feels, about being mentally ill, or maybe its just her being a girl.
They also show another close-up when Susanna is at the hospital, we can see the pain she's going through.
Over the shoulder shot, when Susanna talks to her once teacher whom she had intercourse with, and he wants to go into her room but Susanna does not want him to, the shot is over Susanna's shoulder to show the teacher's expression.
The hospital does not look as bad as described in the book, in the film everything seems much brighter not like a prison.
Medium shot, as Susanna is called up to drink her pills, it shows the faces of the rest of the patients at the hospital, and their behavior.
When Susanna is to fake drinking her medication, they use a bird's eye view, looking down from a mirror, also it is a frame within a frame.
When Susanna is first walking into the bowling area, there's a type of horror music that plays, but once she feels comfortable enough to play, a happy song begins to play.
In the movie Valerie appears more often, and as the mother figure to the girls.
There's a dolly shot being used, going in to the girls room through the windows.
A fade away occurs, while the film tries to show the girls life at the hospital.
Sorrow music being played, after she is written up for drugging the nurse.
Sad song plays when Daisy hangs herself. There's a black cat, that leads Susanna where Daisy has hung herself, black cats are known for bad luck.
Fades away again, when Susanna begins to realize her future, and that she is not crazy.
Camera lowers down from the sky to the hospital, an aerial shot. Frame within a frame is used when Susanna looks through the rectangle glass of Lisa's confinement room.
Ends Susanna on cab leaving the hospital, Lisa is still tied to a bed, and Susanna's voice closes.

Girl Interrupted (68-168)

Summary: Susanna begins to think about how she was admitted to the Hospital, and about the doctor who placed her there. The doctor that made her believe she had a mental illness. She tries to narrow down what a mental illness is, she says it has two types fast and slow. However, to others not experiencing this it may look simpler than what it is. Susanna herself believes she suffers from both, the inability to act, and the obstacles that make it hard to act. According to Susanna's doctor he had examined her for three hours, but Susanna says otherwise, she says it was only twenty minutes.
         While in the hospital, the patients realize how hard life is outside of the McLean. They witness all the violence going on, and how it does not seem like a battle to win. Even though, Susanna thinks the hospital has them all confined, she feels that in a way its a haven. She doesn't have to worry about what's going on with the rest of the world, no need to worry about parents, or homework. A girl who cannot relate to Susanna is Torrey. She was recently admitted into the hospital, and her parents blame her for everything that goes wrong. Torrey, like Susanna in a way is glad to be at hospital. She no longer has to be in Mexico, trying to cope with her addiction. Then her time at the hospital is cut short when her family comes to pick her up, Torrey does not want to leave, and of course Lisa would be the one to throw a tantrum. Though, Valerie the head nurse was already used to Lisa and knew what she was up too. Torrey was gone back to Mexico, and the girls were back to their normal days at the hospital. Another patient is checked in to the hospital, her names Alice. One day Alice went through something none of the girls could explain,
         The nurses quickly transfered Alice to a new room, this room had nothing but a mattress. Her room quickly filled up with waste. The girls stay away from Alice after they see what she has been going through. Once again Susanna begins to think about her mental illness, her counselor is the only man that makes her feel comfortable. Susanna discuses with him how she is 18, and she's still in that hospital. He then arranges that the nurses let her be about more freely. Once having been in the hospital for quite a while, Susanna begins to explain her views on the brain and the mind, rather than her mental illness. She comes to a conclusion that this concept cannot be divided, the mind is part of the brain, unlike the way mental illness can be divided. Susanna also talks about her future husband, and what she encountered during her working time.
         After her release from the hospital, Susanna claims herself to have a borderline personality, in which certain things in her a damaged but not completely. Everyone, at some point left the hospital, and Susanna caught up with some of her friends outside the ward.

Quote: "Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: All of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves" (Kaysen 94).

Reaction: The title of this chapter is bare bones, and it ties in with what Susanna thinks of the hospital, as a place of both confinement and liberty. In a way they were free, they were in a place that kept them safe, there was not much that could go wrong there. Then comes in what they think about their dignity, it is like they can do nothing but act sad to avoid the things they do not want to face. During this chapter, was when Torrey became a patient, and in a way she was free from the drugs of Mexico, but she was confined to this place. This shows the patients control over the situation.