3 Black Chicks Review...'
Girl, Interrupted (1999) Rated R; running time 127 minutes Genre: Drama IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0172493 Official site: http://www.girlinterrupted.com/ Written by: Written by James Mangold (based on the book by Susanna Kaysen) Directed by: James Mangold Starring: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Vanessa Redgrave, Whoopi Goldberg, Brittany Murphy, Elizabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, Travis Fine
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamsgirl.html
Back in mid-December, one of our readers requested that we review "Girl, Interrupted", primarily because she's a big Angelina Jolie fan. Well, I have good news and bad news...
The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) Based on a true story, Winona Ryder plays Susanna Kaysen, a young writer who, on the insistence of her therapist and parents after she chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka ("I had a headache"), checks herself into the Claymore mental institution for "a short rest", leaving behind Toby (Jared Leto), about the closest thing she could claim as a "relationship". There, she meets a variety of residents, including her new roommate and compulsive liar, Georgina (Clea DuVall, who I swear I remember from something, but even a cursory glance at the IMDB doesn't help me remember exactly what...ah, I see it: she was in a couple "ER" episodes); Daisy (Brittany Murphy), a "daddy's girl" in more ways than one; Polly (Elizabeth Moss), who is nicknamed "Torch" for reasons which become obvious as the film progresses; and the vibrant Lisa (Angelina Jolie), a firebrand and troublemaker, who Susanna comes to depend on.
Amongst the staffers are Dr. Wick (Vanessa Redgrave) and Dr. Potts (Jeffrey Tambor), who Lisa tags as "ther-rapists"; John (Travis Fine), an orderly who (inexplicably) comes to like Susanna, and she, him; and Nanny...uh, Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg), a no-nonsense, afro-puff-wearing nurse there to show Susanna the way back to good mental health.
The Upshot: The good news is that Angelina Jolie was mostly decent in this movie. Though she played Lisa a bit over-the-top at times (especially in the way too corny and opaque end scenes), she and Vanessa Redgrave as Dr. Wick, were the bright spots of the story. Jolie especially surprised me; having seen her for the first time in "The Bone Collector", this iteration of her was extremely different (the sign of a good actor being that he or she can easily lose themselves in the role they're playing). Looking much younger and less pretty here, her character reminded me of Jenny in "Forrest Gump"--taken to an extreme. Jolie seemed to rise above the material, and have a lot of fun with it; Redgrave, normally quite the Dramatic Actress, seemed equally at ease with her character. I didn't recognize her at first (A Good Thing), but was quite pleased with the results of her portrayal.
Would that I could say the same for the rest of the cast, especially a very spaced-out looking Winona Ryder. She wasn't bad, exactly; it's just that, like Val kept saying, she never seemed like she really belonged in an institution. "Well, DUH, Rose!", I hear ya saying; "wasn't that the point?" Uh, no, not exactly. It may have been the point that the character never really should've been institutionalized, but the actress shouldn't shine through the character, either. What I mean by that is, I never saw Susanna, Depressed Writer when I looked at her; I only saw Wynona Ryder, Barely Emoting Actress. That, my friends, is Not A Good Thing.
The other patient characters were also not really that bad; they just seemed to be there to fit whatever stereotypes of slightly-loony characters, needed to be filled. DuVall was effective and quite charming as Georgina, but Murphy just spooked me out; I couldn't wait for her to get off the screen. Everyone else was either quirky or just plain weird--staffers included. "Cuckoo's Nest", it wasn't.
But my main beef is with the story itself. It may have been based on the real Susanne's time in Claymore, but it couldn't have felt less real to me. I can't for the life of me figure out why Susanne would have willingly stayed in a place that she knew she didn't belong in, or why she'd sign herself in in the first place (yes, I know what they said, but I didn't buy it for a moment). And though I could easily believe that Susanne would be tagged with a negative label due to her "promiscuous behavior", it's hard for me to believe, in the "Decade Of Love" that the 60s were, that she'd remain institutionalized for seemingly little more than her choice in bedmates.
The institution itself didn't seem the horror that the trailers would have it being; even Val herself said that State institutions were a living hell, comparatively. Mind you, I wouldn't want to be committed to either one, but except for a few straightjacket and "padded cell" scenes, the horror aspect was never really conveyed with any believability. And without that, it all did seem, as Val said, that Susanna and Lisa (and to a lesser extent, the other patients) were just "lazy and self-involved". And that's just boring to watch.
Nothing in the movie felt all that original; the phrase "derivative of" kept popping up in scene after scene. The scene straight out of "Biloxi Blues", with the residents reading Susanna's journal, only made the whole feeling of "seen this before" worse; by the end, I was "calling" the scenes before they played out. And most of the time, I was right. Definitely Not A Good Thing.
The "Black Factor" [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith]:
Whoopi, Whoopi, Whoopi. Chile, what we gwinta do with you? [/end sarcasm]
It's funny; the two movies I've seen this weekend ["Supernova", of course, doesn't count as a movie. But that's another rant for another time] have had the same basic complaint about them, covering opposite sides of the spectrum. In "The Hurricane", some have complained that the characters Rubin and Lesra were mere pawns of the Guilty White Liberals, there to be Saved by the knights in White armor. Here in "Girl", Whoopi is seen by some (yes, yours truly included) as Yet Another nanny figure, there as a wetmaid for Missy's Young'uns to suckle on the teat of her Wisdom. And the "funny" thing is, Susanna as much said the same about Whoopi's character, Val.
Should there be a problem with Whoopi playing "Black nursemaid" (Susanna's words. My sentiment.) to not only the characters in this flick, but more than her fair share of others she's played in (starting with "Clara's Heart")? Should we be tired of this same ol' same ol' by now? Should I take it as a personal affront, because in some ways, I look like Whoopi? Probably not, but yet, I do. Maybe that's my Black Factor cross to bear.
Bammer's Bottom Line: Perhaps with a better cast, or more compelling story, this movie could've Meant Something; perhaps not. I was never emotionally involved in this film--and, despite their histrionics, neither were most of the characters. And would somebody please find Whoopi a decent role to play?
"Girl, Interrupted": (rating: yellowlight) Methinks the young actresses took too many sleeping pills. That, or somebody slipped a mickey into the concession stand popcorn. **yawn**
3 Black Chicks...Movie Reviews With Flava! /~\ Rose "Bams" Cooper /','\ 3BlackChicks Enterprises /','`'\ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 /',',','/`, EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com ICQ: 7760005 `~-._'c / http://www.3blackchicks.com/ `\ ( http://www.dealpilot.com/?partner=1987 /====\
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