By Ryan Mazie
December 21, 2011
The evolution of Angelina Jolie is surely a
fascinating one. From universal sex symbol to serious actress to action
star and now – director/writer/producer, Angelina Jolie is an actress I
will never get tired of watching. This weekend’s limited release of In
the Land of Blood and Honey marks her debut as a force behind the
cameras, scripting and directing a love story set during the Bosnian War
with unflinching gory details according to early reviews. On the same
Christmas weekend, another Jolie film that marked a turn in her career
as an actress that had more substance than her looks was released in
select theaters – Girl, Interrupted.
For being a Jolie fan, I surprised myself,
realizing that I have never seen the movie. But then again, a 1960s
female-driven drama set in a mental asylum didn’t really sound all that
enticing (but if you replace "drama" with "stylized action pic," then
hello Sucker Punch!).
Originally supposed to be a showcase
vehicle for Winona Ryder, it was hijacked by Jolie’s powerfully chilling
performance that makes for one of movie’s most memorable villains
(Angelina’s character of Lisa Rowe I find to be strangely absent from
best villain lists). After seeing a character commit suicide, Lisa is
indifferent to the hanging body of one of her ward mates and says, “Oh,
what an idiot,” before picking her wallet (while she is still hanging).
That’s some cold stuff.
Set in a private mental institution,
Ryder plays Susanna Kaysen, a high school graduate with no intentions of
going to college or fitting into societal norms. After a failed suicide
attempt (chasing down a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka),
Susanna, at the advice of her doctor, goes on an extended “rest,”
signing herself into Claymore mental institution.
Filled with a girl who set herself on fire
(Elisabeth Moss), a Daddy’s girl who can not eat in public (Brittany
Murphy), a pathological liar (Clea DuVall), and a sociopath who runs the
facility (Angelina Jolie), it is clear that Susanna does not have a
problem in the company of these women. I found myself frequently asking
throughout the movie whether Susanna even has a mental problem at all
(she gets diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder).
Susanna
does not want to leave the facility, forming a family with the girls,
although in retrospect she realizes she wasted a year of her life
lingering in the halls of Claymore.
Ambivalent is Susanna’s
favorite word. And that is the word that can describe much of the film’s
plot. I found the free-flowing, time jumping “plot structure,” to
really go nowhere. Sure, it traces Susanna’s journey, but what does that
really amount to when she is not mentally incompetent, but just a girl
refusing to let go of adolescence to begin with?
The script
reads more like Susanna’s diary entries than a novel (Ryder has a voice
over where she reads her character’s generic epiphanies). In fact, I was
surprised to see that Girl, Interrupted was based off of a memoir and
Ryder’s Susanna Kaysen is actually a real woman (the author of the
titular memoir). I guess to say that I found it surprising that this
was a true story is an insult. Kaysen sure did, being a detractor of the
film, saying that she “hated it” for being full of “melodramatic
drivel.” She has a point. Whoopi Goldberg as the inspiration-spouting
Nurse Valerie (because all of these types of films
must has a
wise, old figure) calls Claymore a “five-star resort.” I couldn’t agree
more. Filled with more glitz than grit, Girl, Interrupted is too
mainstream for its own good.
Ryder, who produced the film and was
attached to it for over seven years, delivers a fine performance.
However, being thrown in as a shy girl who is less mental than
ambivalent against characters with bigger than life personalities, she
doesn’t hold her own - especially since she largely co-stars next to the
biggest personality of all – Lisa Rowe. Jolie steals Ryder’s thunder.
Even with significantly less screen time, Jolie is the one person people
come away from this movie talking about.
Witnessing her getting
lost in the role, Jolie is superb as the sociopathic Rowe, scarily
heartless. Prior to Girl, Jolie mainly played the girl-to-look-at role,
but the part of Lisa catapulted her in to a different light. I find it
interesting to imagine what roles Jolie would have taken later if it
weren’t for her next two movies (Gone in 60 Second and Lara Croft: Tomb
Raider), which launched her into being one of Hollywood’s most
consistently bankable (especially in terms of action movies that are
dominated by men) stars.
Critics were split on the film. Ranking
in at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes (40% among Top Critics), I was surprised
how low the score was. Sure, the film is Hollywood-fied and skimps on
some details, especially in terms of psychiatric evaluations and what
the hell the title even means, but by and large I enjoyed it –
especially the performances, which seem to be the one high note
mentioned throughout the reviews.
Even though the film was given the cold shoulder by critics,
the Best Supporting Actress win at the Oscars goes to show how strong
Jolie’s performance was. It was the movie’s only nomination. She swept
the Golden Globes and SAG Awards as well.
The bad reviews didn’t
bode well for its box office. Released in nine theaters, Girl,
Interrupted opened in 37th place with a so-so $10,599 per theater
average. It didn’t break $1 million by the time it went wide in
mid-January to the tune of nearly $9 million in 1,902 theaters. Not
sticking around for long enough to take advantage of the free promotion
from its few award wins, Interrupted topped out at $28.9 million ($45.3
million adjusted) against a $40 million budget.
Told from an
interesting perspective of young women, Girl, Interrupted should have
easily differentiated itself from other films taking place in mental
institutions. However, since it is chock full of plot clichés, has a
saggy middle, and suffers from a slightly anticlimactic final showdown
between Lisa and Susanna, Girl, Interrupted has to rely on its strong
performances to bolster it above Lifetime material (a channel you can
catch the movie on quite frequently).
Better than the reputation
it has been given, Girl, Interrupted is emotionally moving even though
the plot remains more static than one would desire. For a movie taking
place in the loony bin, I wish that James Mangold would loosen his
directorial reigns and make things more … crazy.
Verdict: With Us
8 out of 10
