So thanks to my friend's recommendation, I watched Girl, Interrupted (1999) over the weekend. She kept raving about Angelina Jolie's performance and told me that since I was so interested in psychological disorders I should watch the movie.
So I did and now I don't know if I'm still out of that funk. You know how some stories wreck you from inside you and stay inside you for days, maybe weeks or years? Girl, Interrupted messed me up and turned me into a complete emotional wreck.
Speaking of Misha, he had a tiny role in the movie too. I couldn't help it - I burst out laughing when I saw him try to seduce Winona Ryder.
Castiel, socially awkward since 1999.
What It's About
Susanna (played by the beautiful Winona Ryder) is admitted to Claymoore and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after a failed suicide attempt.
There, she is thrown into a contained, isolated world far removed from reality as she struggles to make sense of her emotional turmoil. She meets a host of patients each with their own diagnoses - a pathological liar (Clea DuVall), a bulimic cutter (Brittany Murphy), a burn victim who behaves like a child (Elisabeth Moss), an anorexic (Angela Bettis) ...
And then there's Lisa (Angelina Jolie), charming, manipulative, rebellious, "dead inside" Lisa, a sociopath who has been in and out of Claymoore for eight years.
Lisa takes an interest in Susanna, who now lives in the ward vacated by Lisa's best friend who killed herself. Susanna finds Lisa exciting and magnetic, but is drawn into a downward spiral the more she hangs out with her.
How It Broke Me
The scene where ***spoiler alert (for the rare few who haven't watched it)*** Susanna found Daisy the bulimic cutter dead in the bathroom after she hung herself completely broke me. It just made me think about all the people out there who battle their inner demons daily, pushing away the voice in their head in an attempt to feel normal and be normal.
Some parts got close to the heart, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels alone or sad or like a failure sometimes. Some days, all you want to do is just curl up and be alone with your feelings, to cry yourself to sleep and let the debilitating self-doubt and sadness consume you. Other days, you just want them to go away and wish that you didn't feel anything.
But it's probably easier to give in to these emotions than dust them off and press on. The trick, I guess, is to keep moving and not stay stagnant with those feelings curdling around you and holding you back.
Favourite Quotes
"Crazy isn't being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It's you, or me, amplified. If you ever told a lie, and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child, forever."
What Susanna wanted to say to Daisy (after Daisy killed herself):
"...I will never know what it was like to be her. But I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."
Psychiatric nurse Valerie's advice to Susanna:
"I think what you've gotta do is put it down. Put it away. Put it in your notebook, but get it out of yourself. Away so you can't curl up with it anymore."I wanted to give Valerie a hug too after she said this!
Scene between Susanna and her psychiatrist:
Susanna: I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favorite word.
Dr. Wick: Do you know what that means, ambivalence?
Susanna: I don't care.
Dr. Wick: If it's your favorite word, I would've thought you would...
Susanna: It means I don't care. That's what it means.
Dr. Wick: On the contrary, Susanna. Ambivalence suggests strong feelings... in opposition. The prefix, as in "ambidextrous," means "both." The rest of it, in Latin, means "vigor." The word suggests that you are torn... between two opposing courses of action.
Susanna: Will I stay or will I go?
Dr. Wick: Am I sane... or, am I crazy?
Susanna: Those aren't courses of action.
Dr. Wick: They can be, dear - for some.
Susanna: Well, then - it's the wrong word.
Dr. Wick: No. I think it's perfect.
Afterthoughts
Girl, Interrupted is the kind of story that you don't know whether to love or hate, like this little book called We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. On one hand, you love it because it is so well executed and emotional and moving; it opens up your eyes to the lives of mentally ill people and makes you see the blurred lines between what's real and what's in your head. On the other, it totally runs you over like a freight train and leaves you in pieces all over the ground; it worms a little too close into your heart for comfort, and I found myself sobbing during more than one scene towards the end.
I love stories that take you through a whole range of emotions. They make you feel so pathetically human, yet so wonderfully alive.
Okay, I think I've written my way out of this emotional fugue. Back to normal life!
Have you watched Girl, Interrupted? What are your thoughts about it, or of mental illnesses in general? I'd love to hear from you! Oh, and if you have any more recommendations on similar subject matter, feel free to share!
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