This Oscar-winning film, starring Winona Ryder as the protagonist Susanna and Angelina Jolie as sociopath Lisa, is an adaptation of Susanna Kaysen’s bestselling memoir (1993). The memoir, which is somewhat thin in background details, is transformed into a story with a plot. I think it’s a very good film, although it diverges quite a lot from the source material, particularly towards the end, with some influence from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

The book, which I have only read once, explores the author’s experiences on a women’s mental health ward in a private hospital, after an affair with her tutor and a suicide attempt. She considers what ‘crazy’ actually is, her sense of belonging to a group of women (often describing their collective experiences) and what her diagnosis meant. The point of the novel, the way I interpreted it, is against locking away young women who are depressed and anxious because they’re trying to figure out their lives and identities. The boundaries were blurred, however, because of the double standards of men’s and women’s behaviour. All of this did come across in the film, but it was accomplished too neatly. They had to manufacture a crisis – Susanna and Lisa escaping together (they weren’t even best friends in the memoir), having a wild journey with hippies, visiting their ex-inmate Daisy (Brittany Murphy) with tragic results – as a turning point for Susanna to realise that her recovery was being harmed by Lisa’s influence. Lisa gets worse, while Susanna gets better by engaging with talking therapy (Dr Wick is not useless in this version) and writing her diary. The final confrontation is Lisa reading out the diary to the girls who thought Susanna was their friend. I felt this was all too much drama.

Susanna says that she left hospital because she got married, but of course that wouldn’t work in the film. In the book, even Lisa gets out of hospital, but in the film the last image of her shows her strapped to the bed, so we are left to wonder.

The acting, editing and music in this film are brilliant. It’s so well-done. I especially liked that Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bookends’ plays at the start. The main theme is ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark. One additional detail I enjoyed was that Georgina, the roommate of Susanna, is a huge fan of the Oz books and is seen reading The Patchwork Girl of Oz. I’m not sure how significant that title is, but I thought of how in the film Return to Oz (1985), Dorothy is sent to a mental hospital. The hospital in Girl, Interrupted – Claymoore (McLean in the memoir) does not seem very well-run. For example, the girls are able to go for adventures, including a bowling alley, in random corners of the hospital without getting checked on throughout the night. Susanna persuades an orderly, John, to have a relationship with her. The character of Valerie, head nurse, was changed. In the book, she is a stoic, kind person with long fair hair. In the film, she’s played by a black actress (Whoopi Goldberg), leading Susanna to use racial insults when Valerie throws her in a bathtub (to wake Susanna out of a stupor). Valerie gives her real, unprofessional opinion of Susanna as spoiled and wasting her privilege by making herself go crazy. I wasn’t sure about this whole scene. Later they also have a hug. The film version of Valerie was too invested in her patients I think. Another difference I picked up on was that Lisa is a ‘junkie’ in the book and street drugs are discussed. In the film this is not really touched upon and they leave out the character of Torrey, who leaves the ward while afraid she will get back into drugs. A final difference is that Susanna finds out she is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, while still in the hospital – she gets to read her file (Lisa helps them all access their records) and the psychiatrist discusses it with her parents while she is there. In reality, she did not find out until years later.

I’m sure I could say more about the film of the book, but I’ve already said a lot. I have to admit I prefer the film, just because the memoir seems a bit patchy – perhaps reflecting the author’s memories and state of mind – and I liked that it was moulded into a story. The grey cat was adorable too.

Image attribution: The cover art can or could be obtained from IMP Awards or Columbia Pictures., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56678762