Girl, Interrupted premiered 25 years ago and provided us with a totally new kind of exploration of young women’s struggle with mental health in a world that is very intent on trying to constrain...
00:00Girl Interrupted premiered 25 years ago and provided us with a totally new kind of exploration of young women's struggle with mental health in a world that is very intent on trying to constrain them, and the importance of the bonds they build with each other on their journey.
00:14Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is.
00:21Starring some of the biggest names of the era, like Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, plus a young Elizabeth Moss before she hit it big with Mad Men, the movie has become a beloved classic, especially because its story, in being of so many eras, manages to feel timeless.
00:39Girl Interrupted continues to resonate with audiences even a quarter of a century later. But what is it specifically that makes the film so impactful?
00:48Crazy isn't being broken. It's you or me. Amplified.
00:54The Girl Interrupted is set in the late 1960s and follows the story of Susanna, an 18-year-old who finds herself checked into a psychiatric institution against her will after she intentionally overdosed in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
01:08The story is based on the real-life Susanna Kaysen, who wrote the memoir, which the film is adapted from.
01:13The story is very of its era. Many of the struggles the young women faced stem from the way women, especially young women, were subjugated in the 1950s and 60s as the fight for equality began to shake things up and scare the status quo.
01:27But it also felt incredibly relevant to the time of its release as well.
01:31In 1999, women were reckoning with new issues surrounding personal freedom and their place in the world.
01:37How you try to fit in, but you can't hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.
01:44The 1960s were, in a way, similar to the turn of the century, in that both eras felt like moments of immense change.
01:51In society, in the power structure, and in which society attempted to contain people who did not fit in, or were seen as a threat to the existing order.
02:00In each young woman in the ward, we can see how being an outsider of any kind can erase much of your identity to others.
02:08Their individual personhood sanded away, in favor of seeing them each as just part of a problem, or as solely a function of their mental illness.
02:16The stories that have come to define these girls are all essentially based around the most traumatic parts of their lives, or their mental illnesses as a whole.
02:24And we find many of these stories aren't even true.
02:27For example, everyone believes that Polly purposefully lit herself on fire during a breakdown, but it's later revealed that she was a victim of a house fire.
02:37But, as is often the case, the truth doesn't necessarily dictate what people choose to believe about each other, especially when it comes to people suffering from mental illness.
02:46Each young woman's struggle, in a way, represents an extreme version of things that so many young women have to contend with, and are judged harshly for.
02:54Swings in emotion, people thinking they lie about everything, self-harm, disordered eating, disobeying authority.
03:01Social contrariness and a generally pessimistic attitude are often observed.
03:07Oh, that's me.
03:08That's everybody.
03:10In the 60s, the 90s, and even today, women pushing for more, a quality fair treatment for their voices to be heard,
03:17or just being openly unhappy with the way they're treated by the world, has been framed by some as a sign that they are in some way defective, and as something that should be punished.
03:26I don't want to end up like my mother.
03:29Women today have more choices than that.
03:32No, they don't.
03:33And in these girls' stories, we can see how they're functionally presented with the same two narrow options we often feel trapped between in real life,
03:42either figuring out how to be, or at least pretend to be, quote-unquote, normal, or ending up ostracized forever.
03:49Have you ever confused a dream with life?
03:53Their freedom isn't necessarily based on actually getting better, but instead on just being able to feign the correct mindset.
04:00As we see with Daisy, who is released, even though none of her actual problems have been dealt with in any way that helps her, to disastrous results.
04:09The film has often been compared to 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which is also set in the 1960s,
04:16and focuses on the issues of psychiatry and institutionalization,
04:20with a particular interest in laying bare how nebulous the line between crazy and non-crazy people truly is,
04:27and how the distinction is so often dependent on who is in charge of making the decision.
04:33What do you think you are, for Christ's sake? Crazy or something?
04:36You're not. You're no crazier than the average.
04:39You pull out walking around on the streets, and that's it.
04:41While Girl Interrupted is focused on women, Cuckoo's Nest is from a very male point of view.
04:47The only main female character is the major antagonist.
04:50And while Jack Nicholson's Randall Murphy was incarcerated for harming a teen girl,
04:55in Girl Interrupted we get to see the stories through the eyes of a teen girl herself.
05:00As a result of all of these differences, though they may share rather similar basic concepts,
05:05both end up with very different tones, points of views, and messages.
05:08Whereas Cuckoo's Nest ends with Murphy totally losing control of himself and his mind after he's lobotomized,
05:14Girl Interrupted is about Susanna successfully regaining her control.
05:19McMurphy's story is more analogous to Lisa's, unable to escape the cycle.
05:24But Girl Interrupted does give Lisa her humanity,
05:27and at least the hope of regaining some control over her personhood.
05:32The young women at Claymore Psychiatric Hospital have found that,
05:35because of the way they behave, look, and experience the world,
05:38that they don't feel like they fit into society at large.
05:42And others around them see having them locked away because of their mental health issues
05:47as a way to essentially permanently banish them from the everyday world.
05:52You know, I know all about you, and I hope they put you away forever.
05:57But here in this community, their outsider status isn't weird at all.
06:01In fact, everyone has something going on that makes them stand out, and often a pariah.
06:07Though they have very different problems and experiences,
06:09being together in this place does give them a shared sense of belonging and understanding,
06:14allowing them to form a tight, if sometimes tenuous, bond.
06:18They were not perfect, but they were my friends.
06:22They certainly fight with one another, and even use each other's problems as weapons.
06:27But we also see how their shared sense of identity in being crazy
06:30has allowed them to find a place where they feel like they can belong.
06:35Though, as we see, this can have its own drawbacks, which we'll discuss in a moment.
06:38But in a world where they have constantly been told that they're not normal or something is wrong with them,
06:44they can find comfort here in this place where that, in fact, is the norm.
06:49It also allows them to be there for each other in a way no one else,
06:53not even the doctors and nurses, can truly be.
06:56Suzanne even turns down running away with her boyfriend,
06:59who is trying to avoid getting drafted into Vietnam,
07:01because she doesn't want to leave the others.
07:03And this place where she finally doesn't feel like the only crazy person in the room behind.
07:09Them?
07:10They're eating grapes off of the wallpaper.
07:13They're insane.
07:15They are.
07:17I am.
07:17While their various mental health issues have hindered each girl's ability to control her own life to varying degrees,
07:23they've all also literally had their control taken away
07:26as they've been incarcerated in this psychiatric facility against their will.
07:31They've had to learn how to cope and survive in this new environment,
07:34living according to the rules of the nurses and doctors there,
07:37and not being allowed to make choices for themselves.
07:40They struggle with the fact that their ability to regain their freedom
07:43is seemingly based far more on their being willing to fit themselves
07:47into the accepted boxes and stereotypes for women of the time than anything else.
07:53And when they do step out of line,
07:55they're hit with intense, inhumane punishments like electroshock and isolation.
08:00Susanna felt listless and trapped in her life,
08:03and so attempted to end it because she couldn't figure out another way to cope during her breakdown,
08:08and felt like she didn't have any other options.
08:11But this led to her becoming trapped in the institution,
08:14where she feels like her options have been narrowed down yet again,
08:17and going in either direction feels nearly impossible.
08:21Ambivalence suggests strong feelings.
08:24In opposition, you are torn between two opposing courses of action.
08:30Lisa illustrates how this loss of control can lead to one attempting to wrest back control
08:35in increasingly destructive ways.
08:38She rebels against everything and everyone she encounters.
08:41It, at first, comes across as genuine bravado,
08:43but we quickly realize that there's much more going on under the surface.
08:48Her pushing back so often and so intensely
08:50is her attempt to stake out claim over her own personhood
08:53in contrast to the others around her and the institution at large.
08:58While Susanna has only just arrived,
09:00Lisa has been in the hospital for years,
09:03since she was only 12 years old.
09:05And so these are the kinds of coping mechanisms
09:07that she's had to come up with to survive
09:09both her life before and her time in the institution.
09:13She hits out at people that she sees as weaker than herself
09:16in an effort to prove to herself that she is strong and capable,
09:20so that she doesn't have to look inward
09:22and confront the truth about her own issues.
09:25This is also likely a part of the cycle of abuse,
09:33with her doling out abuse very similar to what she likely suffered as a child.
09:37It can be easier to lash out at those closest to you
09:40when you feel like you can't actually hit back
09:42at the people or things that are really causing your pain.
09:45And Lisa continually has to keep up this aggressive, overconfident front,
09:49lest she have to truly confront the full extent of her issues
09:52and the long road she has to overcoming them
09:56and really taking control of her life.
09:58The film deals with the idea of escape on multiple levels.
10:02Literal physical escape, escaping society,
10:05and escaping one's own mind.
10:07When they're taken out to get some ice cream,
10:08we see how this group of outsiders is treated by wider society,
10:12how they don't feel like they fit in in this kind of world.
10:15And then the group makes a break for it
10:16and takes an unauthorized field trip to visit Daisy at her new apartment.
10:20Here, we see how this isn't really an escape for any of them.
10:24While they're all technically out of the institution,
10:26they haven't left their problems behind.
10:29As Susanna eventually points out to Lisa,
10:31more than the hospital itself,
10:33she's trapped in a confine of her own making.
10:36Her abrasive, sometimes outright abusive behavior
10:38is a cover for her own fear and sadness that she doesn't want to deal with,
10:42a shell she's built up in the hopes that no one will notice
10:45how broken and alone she really feels.
10:48That's why you keep coming back here.
10:50You're not free.
10:53You need this place.
10:54You need it to feel alive.
10:56Their mistreatment by society has trapped them
10:58in what feels like an endless cycle.
11:00They're ostracized,
11:01they fight back in a way that's deemed unacceptable,
11:04they're confined allegedly for their own good,
11:06and the cycle repeats itself.
11:08But Susanna realizes that she doesn't want to be stuck on this wheel forever
11:12if she can help it.
11:13Though it's not easy,
11:14she begins to cooperate with her treatment
11:16and comes to find that it does help her reframe things
11:19and open herself up to new options in her life.
11:22I've wasted a year of my life.
11:24Maybe the whole world is stupid,
11:28but I'd rather be in it.
11:29Even Lisa seems to find a new level of self-understanding.
11:33She's by no means cured,
11:34but she has opened herself up to seeing herself
11:37as more than just the worst parts of her
11:39and accepting that she is a full person underneath
11:42who deserves a chance.
11:44I'm not really dead.
11:47I know.
11:49Valerie continually points out how important it is
11:51to not let yourself get stuck in
11:53or pulled under by expectations or limitations others put on you.
11:57If you're going to have any hope
11:59of building a safe, happy life for yourself,
12:01you have to find a way to keep moving forward,
12:03as impossible as that can sometimes feel.
12:05Do not drop anchor here.
12:09Stand.
12:10While everything isn't fixed in the end
12:12and wrapped up in a nice bow,
12:14the ending does still feel hopeful
12:16because of that forward momentum.
12:18And by the 70s,
12:20most of them were out,
12:22living lives,
12:23but there isn't a day my heart doesn't find them.
12:26In the end,
12:27it's not about being cured
12:28and becoming not crazy,
12:30but instead learning to accept yourself
12:32for who you are
12:33and figure out ways to cope
12:35with this wild and sometimes painful world.
12:37Because as difficult as it can sometimes be to imagine,
12:41there is hope in the future.
12:43And it's important that we give ourselves
12:45the opportunity to get there.
12:47Maybe I was just crazy.
12:49Maybe it was the 60s.
12:51Or maybe I was just a girl.
12:54Interrupted.
12:54That's the take.
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