User:CeridwynQ/Girl, Interrupted (film)

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Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 American psychological drama film directed by James Mangold and starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Moss, Angela Bettis, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jared Leto. Based on Susanna Kaysen's memoir of the same name, the film follows a young woman who, after a suicide attempt, spends 18 months at a psychiatric hospital between 1967 and 1968.

Girl, Interrupted began as a limited release on December 21, 1999, with a wide expansion on January 14, 2000. The film received mixed reviews from critics, though the performances of Ryder and Jolie received widespread critical acclaim. Jolie won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

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The film presents the experiences of Susanna Kaysen from her autobiographical book of the same name. It describes her experience as a 17 year-old young woman growing up in New England in 1967 with borderline personality disorder when she was committed to Claymoore, a psychiatric hospital after she overdosed on aspirin and alcohol. The doctor who supported her being committed was a family friend of her upper middle-class parents. He normalized her condition as he described how many people enter facilities of this type for help, even writers like herself.  At the onset Susanna does not know that she is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and it is not until much later when Dr. Potts reveals to her her diagnosis. The film provides information regarding her feelings, her relationships and her mental health over the 18 months that she was hospitalized at Claymoore as well as much detail about the many young women she encounters.

While hospitalized, there are many young women who Susanna spends time with. Closest to Susanna through much of the film is Lisa Rowe, who the audience later finds out is a sociopath. She draws Susanna close to her and teaches her how to beat the system by not taking her medication and resisting therapy as well as taking her on evening adventures throughout the institution with other patients. Susanna’s roommate is Georgina Tuskin, a pathological liar who is probably Susanna’s closest friend other than Lisa. Another acquaintance is Polly “Torch” Clark who set herself on fire and is consequently burned all over her body including her face. Another young woman is Daisy Randone, who it is believed was raped by her father and  self-harms,  has obsessive–compulsive disorder,  and is bulimic; and Janet Webber, a skilled dancer who is a sardonic young woman with anorexia. This film shows Susanna and the friends she has made in the film as young women with issues similar to others without such mental health challenges (Chouinard, 2009). This is a progressive film as it contains realistic depictions of these young women, sometimes complicated, but individuated.  This is important to recognize because 67 percent of films examined by Wahl et al present individuals with mental health challenges as violent with nearly two thirds of non-disabled characters afraid of them (2003). In this film, Lisa leads the other young women, including Susanna, in various activities including sneaking around at night in the hospital's underground tunnels and continuously provoking them and the staff, including the stern head nurse, Valerie Owens. Many of the behaviors of these young women would not be unlike behaviors of anyone their age, but at the same time, the film displays the behaviors of their mental health challenges.  Shildrick (2002) avers contronting the monstrous aspects of the characters provides the opportunity for the viewer to acknowledge the other in oneself.

On a rare group outing celebrating Daisy's impending release supervised by Valerie Owens, the women visit an ice cream parlor in town. There, Susanna is confronted by Barbara Gilcrest, the wife of Professor Gilcrest, an English instructor with whom she had an affair, and their daughter, Bonnie. Barbara publicly chastises Susanna for sleeping with her husband.  In this situation, Lisa comes to Susanna's defense, and she insultingly berates Barbara.  The other girls join in and mock Barbara and Bonnie humiliating them until they both leave. This endears Susanna to Lisa even more; while at the same time Nurse Owens yells at Lisa.

In addition to her affair with Dr. Gilchrist, Susanna has had a casual relationship with Toby, a young man who has been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. He visits Susanna, and begs her to run away with him to Canada. Susanna tells him she has become friends with the other girls and would like to leave someday but not with him. The same night, Polly has a breakdown and is placed in isolation. Susanna and Lisa drug the night watch nurse with a sedative and attempt to comfort Polly by singing to her. Susanna also makes out with John, one of the hospital orderlies who has a crush on her. When Valerie Owens finds the group sleeping in the hallway in the morning, she punishes the two women, particularly Lisa, who is forced to endure electroshock therapy followed by solitary confinement.

Lisa manages to break out of confinement before long and convinces Susanna to escape with her. The women hitchhike to Daisy's newly-rented apartment supplied by her doting father, and bribe her with valium to spend the night. Daisy, insistent she has been cured of her illness, is confronted by Lisa when Lisa discovers Daisy has been cutting herself. Lisa taunts and mocks Daisy, accusing her of enjoying the incestuous sexual abuse she has long suffered from her father. In the morning, Susanna finds Daisy dead in her bathroom, having slashed her wrists and hanged herself most likely because of what Lisa had told her the previous evening. Susanna is shocked and appalled when Lisa searches Daisy's room and body for cash. Realizing she is different than and does not want to become like Lisa, Susanna phones for an ambulance and returns to Claymoore while Lisa flees to Florida.

When she gets back to the hospital, Susanna occupies herself with painting and writing, and co-operates with her therapy, including regular sessions with the hospital's head psychologist, Dr. Sonia Wick. Before Susanna is released, Lisa is apprehended and returned to Claymoore. She steals Susanna's diary one night and reads it for the amusement of the patients in the tunnels, turning them against Susanna. After reading an entry in which Susanna feels sympathy for Lisa being a cold, dark person, Lisa attacks Susanna and chases her through the tunnels. Cornered, Susanna confronts Lisa, accusing her of being dead inside, emotionally dependent on Claymoore, and afraid of the world. This confrontation profoundly affects Lisa, who breaks down and contemplates suicide, though the others manage to dissuade her from doing so. Before Susanna is released the next day, she goes to visit Lisa, who is restrained to a bed. The two reconcile, and Lisa insists she is not actually heartless. Chouinard (2009) maintains that including the complexities of women with mental illness in film and other art forms provide an opportunity for open discussion about women who face such challenges and the ways in which society makes them other than isolating them from the larger society.

Cast

• Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen, the protagonist. She was eighteen years old when diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
• Angelina Jolie as Lisa Rowe, diagnosed as a sociopath. Charismatic, manipulative, rebellious and abusive, she has been in the institution since she was twelve, and has escaped several times over her eight years there, but is always caught and brought back eventually. She is looked up to by the other patients and forms a close bond with Susanna.
• Clea DuVall as Georgina Tuskin, a pathological liar. She is Susanna's seventeen-year-old roommate and her closest friend next to Lisa in the institution. Susanna confides in her about life and Georgina informs Susanna about the other girls there.
• Brittany Murphy as Daisy Randone, a sexually abused eighteen-year-old girl with OCD who self-harms and is addicted to laxatives. She keeps and hides the carcasses of the cooked chicken that her father brings her in her room.
• Elisabeth Moss as Polly "Torch" Clark, a burn victim who suffers from schizophrenia. She is sixteen years old and is very childlike and easily upset. Georgina informs Susanna that Polly was admitted to Claymoore after her parents told her that she would have to give up her puppy because of her allergies to it, and in response she poured gasoline on the affected area and set it alight, leaving her face horribly scarred. It is later revealed in Polly's file that she was the victim of a house fire.
• Angela Bettis as Janet Webber, an anorexic. Like Lisa, she is abrasive and seemingly aloof, but is also easily irritated or upset. She is twenty years old.
• Jillian Armenante as Cynthia Crowley. She claims that she is a sociopath like Lisa, but Lisa denies the claim and states that she is a "dyke". She is twenty-two and is easily amused.
• Travis Fine as John, an orderly who is smitten with Susanna. He is later sent to work at the men's ward after he and Susanna kiss and fall asleep together.
• Kurtwood Smith as Dr. Crumble, a colleague of Susanna's father and retired therapist, who sees Susanna as a patient as a favor to her father, and sends her to Claymoore.
• Jeffrey Tambor as Dr. Melvin Potts
• Joanna Kerns as Annette Kaysen, Susanna's mother.
• Ray Baker as Carl Kaysen, Susanna's father.
• Jared Leto as Tobias "Toby" Jacobs, Susanna's ex-boyfriend who plans to escape to Canada after being drafted into the military.
• Vanessa Redgrave as Dr. Sonia Wick, the head psychologist of the hospital.
• Whoopi Goldberg as Valerie Owens, R.N., the stern but caring head nurse who oversees the hospital.
• Bruce Altman as Professor Gilcrest, a college professor with whom Susanna had an affair.
• Mary Kay Place as Barbara Gilcrest, Professor Gilcrest's wife.
• KaDee Strickland as Bonnie Gilcrest, Professor Gilcrest's daughter.
• Robin Reck as Theresa McCullian.
• Misha Collins as Tony
• Drucie McDaniel as M.G.

Themes

Confusion of Social Nonconformity with Insanity

Susanna wonders if her prolonged stay at McLean Psychiatric Hospital is justified. The doctor is hasty in his analysis of her and basis his diagnosis on preconceived ideas relating to gender bias. Her diagnosis suggests that “normal” is as relative as insanity is and Kaysen interrogates the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders definition of Borderline Personality Disorder, calling it a “generalization” rather than a specific case study. She points out that while she is considered recovered from that condition, she still has the first symptom, which is “uncertainty about several life issues”. While Susanna is speaking to her doctor melvin, she calls the rest of the patients “fucking crazy” and that she does not belong with them however her parents and the doctor think otherwise, and soon she also realizes that she’s not much different than them.

Forced institutionalization

Lisa calls Therapy- The-rapey which is a play on words insinuating that the therapy they are forced to undergo in the institution feels like rape (psychological) and says the more a person divulges their secrets, the more likely they would be considered for release. However on the flip side for people like Susana and Lisa who claim to have no secrets the option of release seems oblique. “Although the construct of the asylum represented an immeasurable tool in the pursuit to expiate mental illness, the respect for patient autonomy appeared to have been relegated to those without mental illness.” In 1973 the infamous phrase "dying with one's rights on," was coined by Darold Treffert referring to the ultimate prioritization of patient autonomy over beneficence.

Representations of being a woman with mental illness

The emergence of women's liberation movements in the sixties is of significance to the period Kaysen’s memoir is set. The rights as well as standards were set much differently for women than they were men. Doctor Melvin originally doesn’t inform Susanna of her diagnosis, deeming it was unnecessary for her to know. Eventually when he informs her of the diagnosis, he cites the disorder being more common in women than in men. Subsequent studies on the understandings of the linkages between gender and mental health since the 1960s and 1970s have identified a more even gender balance in overall levels of mental health as they have incorporated a wider range of disorders.

Isolation

The physical depiction of McLean is reminiscent of a prison. With bar covered windows and regular room inspections to make sure the girls are not causing harm to themselves as well as not trying to escape, the girls are subject to the mercy of the ever watchful staff. The theme of Isolation is exhibited in Susanna’s life as neither her parents nor her boyfriend (who quits after a few attempts) come to visit her in the institution. The theme of Isolation also serves as a protective shield from the dangers of the outside world as even Lisa complains that “there’s nobody to take care of you out there.” and people like Torrey are safe from an abusive home and drug pushing environment.

References

Chouinard, V. (2009). Placing the ‘mad woman’: troubling cultural representations of being a woman with mental illness in Girl Interrupted, Social & Cultural Geography Vol 10, No 7: 791-804.

Parr, H. (2000) Interpreting the ‘hidden social geographies’ of mental health: ethnographies of inclusion and exclusion in semi-institutional places, Health & Place 6: 225–237.

Shildrick, M. (2002) Embodying the monster: Encounters with the vulnerable self. London: Sage.

Wahl, O., Wood, A., Zaveri, P., Drapalski, A. and Mann, B. (2003) Mental illness depiction in children’s films, Journal of Community Psychology 31: 553 –560.

Sources

Moore, Kate. "Declared Insane for Speaking Up: The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry." History . TIME, June 22, 2021

Chouinard, Vera. (2009). Placing the 'mad woman': Troubling cultural representations of being a woman with mental illness in Girl Interrupted. Social & Cultural Geography. 10. 791-804. 10.1080/14649360903205108.

Yoo, Hyun-Joo. "Depathologizing the Traumatised Self in Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted." Edinburgh University Press 12, no. 2 (November 2019): 195-207.

Fariba KA, Gupta V. Involuntary Commitment. [Updated 2022 Apr 28]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557377

Busfield, J. (2010). Gender and Mental Health. In: Kuhlmann, E., Annandale, E. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Healthcare. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230290334_11