Girl Interrupted - Movie Review Example

Girl Interrupted The film takes place in 1967 when the leading character - Susanna Kaysen has just graduated from college. After gulping a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of alcohol, her parents ask a friend psychiatrist to see her. Susanna feels that “reality is becoming too dense”. She is asking herself and the audience “Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60s. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted. (Girl Interrupted).” After her admission to Claymore Hospital – mental institution, Susanna is diagnosed suffering from Borderline personality disorder. She spends 18 months of her life struggling with her mental illness, troubles soul and the bizarre and unusual world of the institution. Susanna describes her world as “parallel universe”. An important remark that Susanna makes is that her hospitalization occurs in the 1960s a time of social turmoil, when women do not have that many choices in life. Susanna notes that she does not want to end up like her mom – a housewife preoccupied with her minute life and with nothing else. While residing in Claymore Susanna befriends for the first time with female patients. The setting of the mental institution is surrounded with authoritative staff, which passes restricted privileges and standard bureaucratic procedures, such as checks and sedation of patients. At Claymore Susanna becomes a witness to the patient’s rebellion and its representation in the face of Lisa – a sociopath who creates stir with each of her appearances. The mental institution is filled with range of patients suffering from various mental disorders and strange behaviors. The audience sees all this through Susanna’s eyes and share her feelings of shame – when meeting with a family friend at the ice cream shop or the cynicism of life when faces the truth about Daisy whose father rapes her occasionally. Susanna gets involved in number of situations which evokes in her the horror of the situation she is – misunderstood by everyone and not able to find herself. A memorable scene is when the patients gather together and undertake the brave journey to Dr. Melvin Potts office in order to access their files. Susanna starts reading out loud the characteristics of her illness – borderline personality disorder: “An instability of self-image, relationships and mood... uncertain about goals, impulsive in activities that are self-damaging, such as casual sex…Social contrariness and a generally pessimistic attitude are often observed (Girl Interrupted).” After a moment of silence Susanna concludes that this is her. And Lisa dramatically replies:”Thats everybody (Girl Interrupted).” Lisa’s retort makes the audience questions whether mental institutions are indeed providing mental care for patients, or the illnesses are just not socially acceptable that is why we put people there. Susanna’s stay in Claymore is full with flashbacks from her past experiences and the turning point of the film is when Lisa and Susanna escape to go to Disney in Florida. In their way they find accommodation in a former Claymore patient – Daisy. After Lisa’s sardonic revelations that Daisy’s father is having sex with her. Daisy commits suicide the next day. Lisa steals her money and runs away, while Susanna is in shock after witnessing the real face of death. “When you don’t want to fee, death may seem like a dream. But seeing death, making dreaming about death f… ridiculous (Girl Interrupted).” After 18 months of hospitalization in Claymore mental institution Susanna Kaysen is released. She is “declared recovered” and allowed to return to the “normal” world. But Susanna is asking “Was I even crazy (Girl Interrupted)?” The film is based on the true story of the writer Susanna Kaysen, so we have all grounds to take the real side of the story. Being the film ends with Susanna restoring her connection with her inner self. Crazy doesn’t mean being broken or occupying the dark side of life. Sometimes craziness means that people want to hurt themselves from the outside, to kill the thing that tortures them inside. What I appreciate in “Girl Interrupted” is the attempt to describe the mental illness “borderline personality disorder”. Swartz et al (1990) characterize its conditions as prevalent instability in moods, difficulties in realizing the self-image, controlling interpersonal relationships and reckless behavior. Susanna’s borderline personality disorder is recognized only after her acceptance in the mental institution. Swartz’s symptoms I find only in her Susanna who “chased a bottle of aspirin, with a bottle of vodka” and in her promiscuity. The film is not primarily centered on the borderline personality disorder. Rather, it focuses on the most common situations in mental institutions and the variety of patients that are housed there. Below the surface of “Girl Interrupted” we see that Susanna is not crazy, she is troubled by society’s clichés what a young girl at 19 should have be and her inability to follow the stereotypical manners of girls in the late 1960s. One of the themes in the film is the generation gap. Susanna’s parents are ever self-protective of their daughter, however, they even don’t try to understand her and her mother eventually waves her good-bye from her car parked near the psychiatrist’s house, while Susanna is being sent to Claymore by a taxi. It is not a surprise that the girl has fallen into the mental trap of her self-destruction. The audience sympathizes with Susanna as even when per parents visit her for a group discussion with her psychiatrist at Claymore they show their selfish and emotionally distant attitude towards their daughter. Sad as it may be, the audience understands that Susanna is not as mentally sick as for example Daisy or Georgina. While Daisy’s mental health does not improve during her stay at Claymore, her treatment seems neglected and she is suffering constantly by the inappropriate diagnoses they let her go. This poses serious questions about the mental institutions and what treatments why use to recover their patients. Moreover, Susanna’s illness instills doubts so as for what exactly they will cure there. The situation which accounted for Susanna’s hospitalization was her attempt to commit suicide – drinking a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. Soloff et al (1994) describe that the symptoms of borderline personality disorder appear in 2% of adults, mostly young women. They are highly predisposed to self-injuries without intentionally seeking suicide. Zanarini (1998) outlines that if a person suffering from depression or bipolar disorder changes drastically his moods and endures the same mood for few weeks, an individual with borderline personality disorder may experience intense periods of anxiety, depression, anger which may last few hours or at most a day. Knowing Zanarini’s description we may say that Susanna’s extreme moods are not deeply demonstrated in the film. What the audience sees is an inadequate girl seeking meaning in the late 1960s a world of bewilderment itself – the President Kennedy is assassinated, then Martin Luther King. The hippy movements popularize soft drugs and the old generation associated this with mental illnesses. There is the class and social differentiation too – those who live in the suburban areas – predominantly while, middle class professionals and those who live in the ghetto – working class African-Americans. The dangerous elements from the youth culture are also creating turmoil – music and rock and roll and pop are heavily regarded as damaging the new generation. While Susanna is taken to Claymore by the taxi, the driver remarks that she look normal. Susanna explains that she is sad that is why they are taking her to the mental hospital. The taxi driver smiles and replies that they should lock John Lennon too. The point made in “Girl Interrupted” is that the social system with its rules and restrictions helps for the creation of mentally ill people. An example is Polly. When she was 10 years old her mom told her that she has to give away her puppy, because it makes her rash. Poll finds her father’s gasoline and pours it over her face where the rash is and lights a match. Polly becomes a victim of her own understanding of the world – if she covers her rash, she may keep the dog. The horrific injuries and her hospitalization show how little society cares to understand its own victims. The audience alongside with Susanna realizes that Polly will remain an outcast in society, due to her damaged body, and even if she recovers from the mental difficulties, she will always be pointed out for being different. While we follow Susanna through her mental institution experiences, we see how her perceptions chance. Starting from her denial “I didn’t try to kill myself” she eventually admits that she has problems and after witnessing Daisy’s suicide she starts striving to take the most of her stay in Claymore. We journey with Susanna to her sanity, when she admits that: “Maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid, and ignorant. But Id rather be in it. Id rather be f… in it, than down here with you (Girl Interrupted).” Approaching the end of her hospitalization she is questioned by psychiatrists about her plans. Once announced that she will work as typist and she has an apartment that her parents bought for her Susanna secured her socially agreeable status that a young girl should have. Traditional values place her in the life’s settled path and gets Susanna instant picket out of the mental institution. Susanna – a troubled girl, a girl interrupted by the social demands opposing to follow the norms probes into her inner strength to find the obedience required in order to be accepted into the “normal” world. “Girl Interrupted” ventures into the mental care institutions, where the differentiation between mental illnesses and socially disturbed individuals is mingled. Patients are sedated regardless of their mental diagnoses, they all take the same prescriptions in a attempts to make them more controllable. “Girl Interrupted” is a film discussing not only the borderline personality disorder, but also other mental diseases and the American mental care in the 1960s and 1970s. The film expresses profound ideas about generation misunderstandings and gender roles which were challenged at that time. Works Cited: Soloff PH, Lis JA, Kelly T, Cornelius J, Ulrich R. Self-mutilation and suicidal behavior in borderline personality disorder. Journal of Personality Disorders, 1994; 8(4): 257-67. Swartz M, Blazer D, George L, Winfield I. Estimating the prevalence of borderline personality disorder in the community. Journal of Personality Disorders, 1990; 4(3): 257-72. Zanarini MC, Frankenburg FR, DeLuca CJ, Hennen J, Khera GS, Gunderson JG. The pain of being borderline: dysphoric states specific to borderline personality disorder. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1998; 6(4): 201-7. Girl Interrupted. Dir. James Mangold. Perf. Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Vanessa Redgrave and Whoopi Goldberg. 3 Art Entertainment, 2000. Film. Read More