Opens December 21, 1999

From Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to the tragedy of Frances to a classic like The Snake Pit, it 's clear that Hollywood loves crazy people. Hey, what's not to love? They're fascinating, they're unpredictable and there's nothing more comforting for an audience than to know that there's someone out there who is more messed up than they are. So, it comes as no surprise that someone finally got around to adapting Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical book Girl, Interrupted. Too bad it has turned out to be a singularly disappointing film.

The trouble is plain to see. Not only is Kaysen a relatively normal girl suffering from adolescent confusion, but in the hands of director/ writer James Mangold and writers Lisa Loomer and Anna Hamilton Phelan, the world of the mental hospital in this film is bland and oh-so-average. Kaysen's book was episodic and heartfelt, written by a young woman searching for identity during the troubled 1960's. Not only is the confusion of the 60's only paid lip service, but Susanna's more provocative memories and emotional leaps are ignored for a standardized treatment of life in an institution. Too bad. Especially in light of the news stories these days, the perspective of a disaffected teen has wonderful potential, especially because Kaysen's book really explored how the world in which she grew up gradually ate away at her sense of self.

Privileged and withdrawn Susanna (Winona Ryder) ends up at the Claymore Institute after she chases a bottle of aspirin with a fifth of vodka. As she coldly tells the shrink her parents have sent her to: "I had a headache." The shrink thinks otherwise and, instead of really exploring her pain, he suggests that she commit herself to Claymore for a rest. Susanna never puts up a fight and you get the sense that her parents simply want her to disappear. It's one of the many plot holes in the film, leaving you to wonder exactly how she ended up committing herself.

At Claymore, Susanna is assigned to a no-nonsense nurse, Valerie (Whoopi Goldberg), a roommate, Georgina (Clea Duvall) and a standard drug regime -- sleeping pills, sedatives, laxatives. Next comes the standard "getting to know you" sequence where she meets the other inmates. Along with Georgina who is an inveterate liar, there's sweet, but disfigured Polly (Elisabeth Moss) and Daisy (Brittany Murphy) whose penchants run toward laxatives and the roasted chicken that her disturbingly doting father brings her each week. And finally, we meet Lisa (Angelina Jolie), the queen of the ward whose sociopathic tendencies are both seductive and terrifying. Lisa is truly the only "crazy" person here and, even that classification is subject to debate. Together, this little group does the standard mental institution stuff. They bitch about the nurses, palm their pills, throw fits and sneak out at night. Quite simply, that's the plot, the whole plot and nothing but the plot. The writers throw in a couple of real dramatic sequences, such as when Susanna has one of the film's few truly incisive conversations with Claymore's head psychiatrist Dr. Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), but these moments are few and far between.

By and large, there's not a lot of insight here and part of the problem is that Susanna isn't really disturbed. She doesn't belong at Claymore and, frankly, it's an uphill battle to convince us that she's really as troubled as these other girls. Even she tells one of the doctors, "everyone here is crazy." Kaysen's book explored the nature of mental illness and what defined it. Her book was less about being crazy than it was about finding one's place in a troubled world. Yet, the film sidesteps these issues for a more standardized story line in which all the girls are more cardboard cut-outs than really complex individuals. Even Jolie, who puts herself wholly into her wild role, has to struggle to make Lisa seem like more than a wacked out caricature.

When it comes down to it, though, the real weakness here lies in Susanna herself. Her nurse Valerie finally nails it on the head. "You're a lazy, selfish little girl", she tells a cornered Susanna. I almost wanted to cheer. Finally, someone who sees the truth. Susanna isn't mentally ill. She isn't disturbed. She isn't even slightly unbalanced. She's a girl who has lost a little bit of direction and acted out because of it. Just like any other confused young person who is in the throes of growing up. And, if you're making a movie about mental illness, you need a character who is either really mentally ill or who is so convinced she isn't that she fights tooth and claw to prove it. Susanna satisfies neither criteria. She's just a confused young woman who floats through her life, hoping she'll have an epiphany about herself. She never does, and neither do we.