Girl, Interrupted (film)

Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 American drama film, and a loosely based adaptation of Susanna Kaysen's 1993 memoir of the same name. The film chronicles Kaysen's 18-month stay at a mental institution. Directed by James Mangold, the film stars Winona Ryder (who also served as an executive producer on the film) as Kaysen, with a supporting cast that includes Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Clea DuVall, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Moss and Vanessa Redgrave.

Girl, Interrupted was released on December 21, 1999. Although the film received mixed reviews from film critics, Jolie received considerable praise for her performance and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award.

Plot

In April 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), a depressed and unmotivated girl is checked into Claymoore psychiatric hospital, after having a nervous breakdown and taking an overdose of aspirin. She denies the accusation from many that she was attempting to commit suicide, claiming that she was only trying to get rid of her headache. Susanna's mother and father, along with the nurses and therapists, are surprised when Susanna confesses that she does not actually want to go to college and would like to become an independent, free-spirited writer.

Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The memoir's title is a reference to the Vermeer painting Girl Interrupted at her Music.

While writing the novel Far Afield, Kaysen began to recall her almost two years at McLean Hospital. She obtained her file from the hospital with the help of a lawyer.

In 1999, the memoir was adapted into a film of the same name starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. It was directed by James Mangold.

Plot introduction

The plot of Girl, Interrupted does not follow a linear storyline, but instead the author provides personal stories through a series of short descriptions of events and personal reflections on why she was placed in the hospital. She begins by talking about the concept of a parallel universe and how easy it is to slip into one, comparing insanity to an alternate world. She discusses how some people fall into insanity gradually and others just snap. Kaysen also details the doctor's visit before first going to the hospital and the taxi ride there at the beginning of the book before launching into the chronicles of her time at the hospital.

Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder (born Winona Laura Horowitz; October 29, 1971) is an American actress. One of the most profitable and iconic 1990s actresses, she made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. As Lydia Deetz, a goth teenager in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988), she won critical acclaim and widespread recognition. After various appearances in film and on television, Ryder continued her acting career with the cult film Heathers (1988), a controversial satire of teenage suicide and high school life that has since become a landmark teen film. She later appeared in the coming of age drama Mermaids (1990), earning a Golden Globe nomination, in Burton's dark fairy-tale Edward Scissorhands (1990), and in Francis Ford Coppola's gothic romance Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

Having played diverse roles in many well-received films in the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s, Ryder won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination in the same category for her role in The Age of Innocence in 1993 as well as another Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress, for the literary adaptation Little Women the following year. She later appeared in the Generation X hit Reality Bites (1994), Alien: Resurrection (1997), the Woody Allen comedy Celebrity (1998), and Girl, Interrupted (1999), which she also executive-produced. In 2000, Ryder received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honouring her legacy in the film industry.

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie Pitt (/dʒoʊˈliː/ joh-LEE; née Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and has been cited as Hollywood's highest-paid actress. Jolie made her screen debut as a child alongside her father, Jon Voight, in Lookin' to Get Out (1982). Her film career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993), followed by her first leading role in a major film, Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical television films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999).

Jolie's starring role as the video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) established her as a leading Hollywood actress. She continued her successful action-star career with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), and Salt (2010), and received critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Mighty Heart (2007) and Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Beginning in the 2010s, she expanded her career into directing, screenwriting, and producing, starting with the wartime dramas In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011) and Unbroken (2014). Her biggest commercial success came with the fantasy picture Maleficent (2014).

Susanna Kaysen

Susanna Kaysen (born November 11, 1948) is an American author, best known for her memoir Girl, Interrupted.

Life

Susanna Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of economist Carl Kaysen, a professor at MIT and former advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and his wife Annette Neutra Kaysen. Kaysen has one sister and is divorced. She lived for a time in the Faroe Islands, upon which experience her novel Far Afield is based.

Kaysen attended high school at the Commonwealth School in Boston, and the Cambridge School before being sent to McLean Hospital in 1967 to undergo psychiatric treatment for depression. It was there she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She was released after 18 months. She later drew on this experience for her 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted, which was adapted into a film in 1999. She was portrayed by Winona Ryder.

Bibliography