Girl Interupted

I did project number two, and I evaluated a movie. The movie I chose to review is Girl Interupted. This story is an adaptation of the autobiographical book, set in the late 1960's, by Susanna Kayson herself. The disorder that she has is borderline personality disorder.

The movie was set in 1968. It starts out portraying Susanna's attempt at committing

suicide. She apparently chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. Her parents had one of her fathers colleague's who doesn't practice anymore sit down with her and diagnose her. After the diagnosis, he says the rest she can get at Claymore was much needed. Claymore was an inpatient psychiatric facility. Because she was over 18, she had to sign herself in. At first she didn't know why she was in there. She did not understand her disorder, so she thought she didn't deserve to be there. She fought back and rebelled. She became good friends with a sociopath, Lisa Rowe, played by Angelina Jolie, who was definitely

not a good influence for her. She is the most rebellious of all the ladies. They escape from Claymore. and ended up at Daisy's apartment. She was recently released from Claymore. After feeling humiliated by Lisa, Daisy committed

suicide. Susanna goes back to Claymore and changes her way. Lisa came back later, but Lisa knew what she needed to do to get out of the place. She shapes up and she gets out not too much after.

Borderline personality disorder is defined as being unstable self image, mood, and interpersonal relationships, impulsive and unpredictable. The movie poorly displayed borderline personality disorder. The main focus of the movie is the struggle Susanna has with herself understanding why she is in Claymore. Although the movie does exhibit a few of the characteristics of the disorder including impuslivity (sexually) unstable relationships (barely touched upon and not developed in the over-all plot), suicidality, career confusion, and identity confusion, it does not clearly exemplify the disorder.

One of the main reasons is that Angelina Jolie's character, Lisa, takes the spotlight during a lot of the movie. She finds a way to break into an office and read confidential files. She breaks out frequently. She's loud and always has the attention. This causes the attention to be focused off of Susanna. It does not go into a lot of detail about her problems. It does flash back a couple of times showing her boyfriend being drafted into the military, and her affair with a professor that seemed to turn from consentual to somewhat abusive. Her file had a note that she was promiscuous but she denied it.

This movie seems to do a better job at depicting Susanna's journey from fear to acceptance. It does not go into a lot of detail about her previous life. I did enjoy the movie and the acting was superb but it does not give substantial evidence to genuinely describe borderline personality disorder.

From the research I have done from the National