Girl, Interrupted | Full-Length Reaction
Added 2025-04-23 00:48:33 +0000 UTC
Comments
This is my favourite movie! So happy that you watched it.
Luna
2025-06-11 18:08:55 +0000 UTCChecking out your backlog after subscribing. I loved this movie when I was in college, it’s one of my favorite movies ever. I even read the book. I hope you liked it! Some great performances in it.
Stefan and Erin S
2025-06-01 15:54:43 +0000 UTCI'm glad you enjoyed this, it was definitely a big movie for me growing up. Apparently the author disliked the film because it deviated too much from her experience, but I don't necessarily think that makes it a bad film? The cast is so strong, especially Angelina Jolie. I feel like I appreciate what a great actress she is watching it again as an adult. I also feel like it was one of the more nuanced portrayals of "sociopathy" in the media, with the climax of the film showing how despite her capacity for cruelty and callousness, she is not unfeeling or emotionless. Her behaviour toward Daisy and Susanna shows that she feels deeply resentful and envious of people who "get better", and her unfortunate response to that is to try to drag anyone getting out down with her. As for Susanna - i think Valerie was definitely onto something regarding Susanna's diagnosis. Susanna seems to have a few notable borderline traits (suicidality, dissociation, feelings of emptiness) but even the few scenes where she gets upset or angry in the film didn't strike me as necessarily disproportionate with the context, and her relationships while problematic seemed fairly consistent. (I have a lot of BPD in my family as well and a few BPD traits myself.) As some other commenters have pointed out, this was a time period where women and people from minority groups were over pathologized simply for behaving in ways that were deemed transgressive by larger society. She clearly needed professional help, but I would say long-term institutionalization in her case seems wildly disproportionate by today's standards (and I also think that her family and peer group had a heavy hand in her symptoms deteriorating as much as they did). With that being said, I also think that it's relatively speaking a pretty compassionate portrayal of BPD considering the amount of stigma levied toward that particular diagnosis (and all personality diagnoses, frankly).
Megan
2025-04-25 21:21:52 +0000 UTCFantastic reaction, as usual! I first read the memoir this is based on when I was 16 or 17, so precisely the right age to resonate with Susanna. The movie isn't quite as nuanced as the book, but the performances are wonderfully strong, and it captures the high points very well. It's interesting, watching it now as an adult versus when I was a teenager, there's so much more nuance to the different aspects. Thank you for reacting to this and your thoughtful commentary! (And agree the critics missed the boat on this one -- I always thought it was because it was a movie about complicated women with issues that weren't all magically solved by the end, or presented in a cool, sexy way. Angelina did win an Oscar for it, though!)
Jenny_M
2025-04-24 02:05:42 +0000 UTC
