Girl Interrupted review
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Girl Interrupted is based on the memoirs of Susanna Kaysen. Set in the socially and politically tumultuous times of the late 1960s, the story revolves around a young woman's personal struggles.
Winona Ryder is perfectly cast as Susanna, a disenfranchised youth on the cusp of adulthood. Not since Beetlejuice and Heathers has Ryder's brooding been put to better use. Feeling increasing pressure from her parents and peers, along with the fallout from an affair with a professor, Susanna chases a "headache" with a bottle of aspirin and vodka. As a result, she is prescribed "a short rest" at an all-girl psychiatric facility. There, Susanna encounters a strange and frightening yet alluring world. She immediately realizes there are people who definitely belong in a facility, along with those who display enough fortitude to be independent, including the charismatic Lisa (Angelina Jolie). Over the course of the year she spends at the facility, Susanna begins to redefine herself and her relationship to the outside world. Whether she finds any real solutions is left to the audience...