Stars: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea Duvall, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Mary Kay Place, Vanessa Redgrave, Jeffrey Tambor, Travis Fine, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa Redgrave, Jared Leto, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Moss

Director: James Mangold

Summary: Susanna Kaysen is depressed and unwell as a result of being out of touch with the society she grew up in. At eighteen she takes too many aspirins for her own good and is put in an asylum by the authorities. This is the story of her time in the mental hospital.

Adapted from Kaysen's popular memoir, GIRL, INTERRUPTED is handled with extreme sensitivity by director James Mangold (HEAVY, COPLAND.) Winona Ryder stars as Susana, a troubled teenager whose confused attempt at suicide lands her in a mental hospital. Once there, she meets an odd assortment of characters, including Lisa (Angelina Jolie), who at first mesmerizes Susana with her uninhibited demeanor. The pair form a tight bond, but that connection is threatened when Lisa begins to spiral even further out of control. Ryder and Jolie's intense performances are just one of many reasons to watch this picture.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

Based on Susanna Kaysen's acclaimed journal-memoir, Girl, Interrupted bears inevitable resemblance to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and pale comparison to that earlier classic is impossible to avoid. The mental institution settings of both films guarantee a certain degree of déjà vu and at least one Oscar winner (in this case, Angelina Jolie), since playing a loony is any actor's dream gig. Unfortunately, director James Mangold seems to have misplaced the depth and delicacy of his underrated debut, Heavy, despite a great deal of earnest effort by everyone involved. It's easy to see why Winona Ryder chose to star in (and executive-produce) this nearly worthy adaptation of Kaysen's book, since it's a strong vehicle for female casting and potent drama. Mangold certainly got the former; whether he succeeded with the latter is not so clear. To be sure, Ryder conveys the confusion and chaos that signified Kaysen's life during nearly 18 months of voluntary institutionalisation beginning in 1967. But the film seems too eager to embrace the cliché that the "crazies" of the Claymoore women's ward are saner than the war-torn world outside, and lack of narrative focus gives way to semipredictable character study.

Susanna (Ryder) is labeled with "borderline personality disorder," a diagnosis as ambiguous as her own emotions, and while Jolie chews the scenery as the resident bad-girl sociopath, Ryder effectively conveys an odyssey from vulnerable fear to self-awareness and, finally, to healing. The ensemble cast is uniformly superb, making this drama well worthwhile, even as it treads familiar territory. If it ultimately lacks dramatic impact, Girl, Interrupted makes it painfully clear that the boundaries of dysfunction are hazy in a world where everyone's crazy once in a while. --Jeff Shannon

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Deleted Scenes, Directors Commentary, Filmographies, Interactive Menus, Isolated Movie Score, Making Of Featurette, Menus With Film Score, Trailer
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	1999
Release Date:	April 16, 2007
Runtime:	127 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C 8228589
Keywords:	Girl, General, Drama, Interrupted
Genre:	Drama