Girl Interrupted Analysis

Girl, Interrupted (1999) directed by James Mangold is largely based on a semi- autobiographical book by the same title. The movie chronicles eighteen year old Susanna Kaysen’s experiences surrounding her stay at a mental institution. It is 1967, a time of social change and unrest. Susanna makes a half-heart attempt at suicide, ingesting a bottle of aspirin and chasing the pills with a bottle of vodka. She is taken to the emergency room, her stomach is pumped and she survives. Afterwards she meets with a psychologist who explores her more recent feelings and experiences. The psychologist concludes, with her parents assent, that she would benefit from a stay at Claymore, a private mental institution. The next year and nine months forever alter her life. When Susana arrives at Claymore, she is immediately introduced to a completely different lifestyle. Her daily schedule comes to include regularly conducted “checks”, sessions with a psychiatrist, and medication. To an outsider the patients seem to individually represent the stereotypical persons one would expect to find in an institution. Susanna’s roommate, Georgina, is a pathological liar. Polly, nicknamed “Torch”, had, as a girl, poured a flammable substance on herself and set herself on fire. Daisy has an eating disorder, an unhealthy, very sexual, relationship with her father and wishes to almost replace her mother in some circumstances. Janet has anorexia and has become addicted to laxatives. Cynthia is a lesbian. Lisa, whom Susanna comes to befriend and at one point seeks to imitate, is a psychopath. To Susanna these girls come to be her friends, support system and alternative, temporary family. Susanna is eventually deemed cured, no longer a threat to herself or others, and allowed to leave. Her stay had given her a better understand of others, altered her perceptions of what is and isn’t “crazy” and allowed for a sense of calmness and security to pervade her life. In the movie, the diagnosis

References: (1) Girl, Interrupted. James Mangold. Columbia Pictures. 1999. (2) Borderline Personality Disorder. 2003. <http://www.psychologynet.org/bpd.html> (3) Diagnosis of mental disorders. Lundbeck Institute. <http://www.brainexplorer.org/factsheets/Psychiatry%20Diagnosis.pdf> (4) Sue, D., Sue, D.W., Sue, S. Understand Abnormal Behavior. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2003. (pages