I’d been on a roll with this blog, watching movies that present good depictions of mental health conditions, or at least, weren’t as awful as I thought they were going to be. That streak is over now, having watched Girl, Interrupted. This movie is not just bad; it’s just about as bad as it can get.
Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 movie based on a book by Susanna Kaysen. Susanna is the main character, a young woman put in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. She spends a year there, learning about herself and getting into adventures with the other consumers, including Angelina Jolie’s Lisa and Brittany Murphy’s Daisy. After becoming close with Lisa, the two break out of the hospital and this leads to disaster and Lisa’s disappearance. Susanna begins to get better and finally is scheduled for release, but Lisa’s reappearance threatens to derail her progress. This leads to a bitter confrontation before Susanna leaves.
Entries for month: June 2013
MHA's Blog: Chiming In
In my review for A Beautiful Mind, I complained that the movie switched points of view once John Nash’s schizophrenia was diagnosed, and that was the interesting point of view. I believe that I said that there are no movies that keep the main character’s point of view when his or her illness is identified. I was wrong. Spider does and does it very effectively.
Sometimes, smaller movies are the best avenues to discuss mental health on film. There are numerous ways to interpret an illness, and by taking a smaller, more daring approach to the material, filmmakers can say more about what it means to deal with a mental illness than if they tried to appease the masses. Keane takes that approach, and it makes for an interesting movie, if not a clear story. By putting the scenes of the movie out of order, he makes a statement about what perception means and how movies can express it.
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