In the 1960s, mental illness was still considered a stigma.
Back then, people had "breakdowns," suffered "nervous exhaustion" or just "needed some rest."
They were not suffering from schizophrenia, manic depression, anorexia or bulimia.
Girl, Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen's memories of the two years she spent in a mental institution because a psychiatrist had diagnosed her as having Borderline Personality Disorder.
Winona Ryder has been trying to turn Kaysen's stream-of-consciousness recollections into a film for almost a decade.
She has teamed up with director James Mangold (Cop Land) and screenwriters Lisa Loomer (Road to Kensington) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Gorillas in the Mist) to create a poignant story of a young woman's struggle to understand her own depression and indecision.
This is not quite One Flew Over the Snake Pit, though there are elements of Cuckoo's Nest and The Snake Pit, two classic Hollywood films about mental institutions.
Girl, Interrupted doesn't show the horrors of a sensitive person being committed to a ward with more serious patients, so it is no Snake Pit, the 1948 autobiographical account of a woman's struggle with mental illness.
It is not as intentionally funny or irreverent as Cuckoo's Nest, though there are definite moments of levity in Girl, Interrupted.
It is instead a sincere, heartfelt examination of physical and emotional problems which often plague teenage girls.
With understanding, guidance and direction, most can be controlled, if not eliminated.
This is what Nurse Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg), Dr. Wick (Vanessa Redgrave) and Dr. Melvin (Jeffrey Tambor) try to convey to their patients -- more often than not unsuccessfully.
Ryder plays Kaysen as inquisitive, suspicious and confrontational -- a combination that alienates adults and authority figures.
It's a restrained performance that makes it difficult to identify and sympathize with Kaysen. Ryder distances the audience as much as Kaysen does her parents, the hospital staff and most of her fellow patients.
It's obvious Ryder is too close to the material.
Ryder's performance is balanced by Angelina Jolie as Lisa, a manipulative sociopath who is so clever she knows how to push everyone's buttons in the hospital.
Jolie holds nothing back. It's a scene-stealing romp that is bound to nab her an Oscar nomination because she makes this her film as much as Lisa makes the hospital her domain.
Brittany Murphy as the sexually abused bulimic and Elisabeth Moss as a girl whose emotions are as scarred as her face provide memorable cameos.
Goldberg is stern and kindly and Redgrave almost saintly.
One of the big problems with Girl, Interrupted is that security at the hospital is so lax the girls can go on nightly excursions throughout the building.
One night, they take over Dr. Wick's office to peruse their medical files.
On another foray, they sneak into the basement and bowl in an abandoned alley, then cavort with male staff members.
Girl, Interrupted may lack impact, but it is not short on insight.
(This film is rated "AA")
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