"Maybe I was just crazy. |
While everyone else in her 1967 senior class is heading to college, neurotic Susanna (Wynona Rider) is on her way to a private mental hospital after chasing a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka.
Her "dorm" for the next year is populated with an assortment of young womenwho are deeply disturbed. Nurse Val (Whoopi Goldberg) tells Susanna she is "a lazy, self-indulgent little girl who is driving yourself crazy" and cautions her "Do not dropy our anchor here" as some of the other girls have.
The assortment of girls include roommate Georgina (Clea DuVall) who is obsessed with Dorothy's Oz, the burn-scarred Polly (Elisabeth Moss) whose emotional scars are much deeper and more profound, the deeply disturbed Daisy (Brittany Murphy) who was sexually abused by her father and obsesses over food.
The most potent, however, is the psychotic, sociopathic Lisa (Angelina Jolie) -- a charismatic and incorrigible rebel who habitually escapes from the facility, is found, returned and endures progressively stronger "treatment" including electroshock.
I was annoyed by some of the melodramatic scenes where Lisa leads the girls on clandestine forays into the bowels of the institutions and midnight raids on the psychiatrist's office to read their files, but I imagine it's all to show how much power a nutcase like Lisa can have over the more vulnerable girls.
It isn't until Susanna decides that she doesn't want to remain sentenced to this dorm of the doomed that she begins the long road to proving herself stable.
Joanna Kerns portrays Susannah's mother while Venessa Redgrave and Jeffrey Tambor play psychiatrists.
Based on the journals of Susanna Kaysen with screenplay and direction by James Mangold.
Rated R for strong language and content relating to drugs, sexuality and suicide.
My personal rating: B
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