Moving Pictures: Revisiting Girl, Interrupted As an Adult

Before we begin, I’d like to leave a quick trigger warning and spoiler alert! I mention some of the themes from the explicit movie Girl, Interrupted.

Whenever I'm not gaming, I can usually be found watching TV with my wife; this is no surprise, as I've always been a fan of anything from shows and cartoons to movies. The only difference has been what genre I was into at the time, as throughout the many ups and downs of life, I've dabbled in all of them: from comedies and romance to dramas. At one point, I even tried to watch some of the more niche films to see what all the fuss was about, and I've lost count of the times I've promised myself I'd "watch every classic"! Alas, I don't have the attention span or commitment for that.

That being said, once my wife and I watched the Marvel movies, we were never the same; they clicked with us in a way that few others had, so we got a bit stuck on watching and rewatching the saga. While I wouldn’t have minded doing that until the end of time, it is concerning to me that I might memorise them and end up losing the ability to revisit them every few years!

This is how it occurred to me: I racked up a long list of films that I saw as a kid and teenager, and I loved some of them enough to rewatch those, too. So, what would happen if I revisited them now? Were they really that good, or was I just too young and inexperienced to notice the bad? Of course, there's no way I'd do this without my lovely wife, so she joined me on my journey, which is good as it provides an outsider perspective (she's never been a big fan of movies) so that I can better judge without nostalgia or bias!
The one we decided to tackle first was Girl, Interrupted, an edgy movie that is (apparently loosely) based on the memoir of the same name. We chose this film not only because I was utterly obsessed with it as a teenager (I had a huge crush on Angelina Jolie!) but also because it was a pretty big deal some years back.

Despite how long it’s been since I watched some of these movies (for some of them, it’s been over a decade), I remembered a lot about this one in particular. In spite of that, I was taken aback almost immediately by the obvious differences in the culture then and now; while it’s somewhat of an obvious thing to happen, it’s astonishing to realise how little we feel the changes as they occur. As someone who has been slowly climbing her way to adulthood throughout these last few decades, for the most part, I barely noted how different everything is nowadays, except for some of the more impactful things. I don't know if all the movies will be this jarring, but it was really interesting to experience.

Starting off, the way Girl, Interrupted approaches mental health is a far cry from what we see nowadays. Susanna is treated like a maniac and a burden, and the narrative makes little effort to emphasise the message that it is okay to struggle or that there's even hope to get better. Instead, we watch these destructive characters implode and hurt others throughout the entire movie with little resolution or reason. I also noticed that her borderline diagnosis gets thrown around in a way that is meant to be scary (much like schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder are still to this day), and a lot of the symptoms are used to demean her. Nowadays, we understand that being BPD isn’t a death sentence whatsoever — with proper treatment and therapy, it’s possible to live fulfilling lives!

In a similar vein, while the movie is set in an in-patient facility and deals with a cast who is struggling with an array of issues, there’s barely any focus on the therapy, the doctors, or even the treatment in general. Whenever these things do appear, they do so under a bad context or to advance the story in some way, such as Susanna learning to cheek her pills. The only exception I can think of is the staff they interact with, such as Whoopi Goldberg’s character, who has some fantastic scenes!

Whilst it does feel like the memoir was chosen just because the idea of a mentally ill cast with lesbians would be an eye-catching film, I was genuinely pleased by the portrayal of Lisa (Angelina Jolie’s character) and Susanna’s diagnosis. These two may have teetered the line between realistic writing and obviously movie-like, but overall, as someone who really enjoys learning about psychology, they felt more accurate than I expected from something released in 1999.

Aside from being taken aback by the feeling of watching a movie about mental illness that has no positive message, I also felt out of place watching the actors in it. The last time I saw Winona Ryder was in Stranger Things, and she was playing the mom, and I can’t remember a recent film where I saw Whoopi (unfortunately)! Looking back at how the former looked when she was around my age was an interesting experience, and although I had already seen it throughout my life, it's jarring when you're doing it 25 years in the future. And while we're on the topic of its release date, although the film is surprisingly normal about lesbian relationships for its time, there are still a lot of things that give away its age. A great example is that one of the symptoms used to make Susanna feel bad about herself is that she's “promiscuous” and the commonality of cigarettes.

To be totally honest here, the reason I ended up watching Girl, Interrupted when I was younger was because I was a bored teenager who didn't go to school, was confused about her sexuality, and thrived on being morbidly curious... though, what teenager isn't most of that? Back then, while I did really enjoy it, I didn’t feel satisfied by the scenes that were meant to be shocking. Looking back, it makes sense because of the sort of habitat the internet used to be: there was barely any censorship whatsoever! I can't imagine any movie or show could have challenged me enough to make me uncomfortable. As an adult — and especially considering how things work now — it's much easier for me to recognise that those scenes couldn't have been any worse without possibly crossing the line of what was acceptable even during those times.

I haven’t been catching up with the latest movies, so I couldn’t say how commonplace some of these gruesome themes are anymore, but I did find it almost jarring to see Daisy’s body hanging from her neck after she committed suicide. I think films have been trying to be a bit more sensitive to these sorts of things, though, again, I might just not have enough exposure to modern TV and theatre.

While I did anticipate that there would be some things that would feel dated when we booted up the movie, I didn't expect to miss the freedom of just watching a chaotic film for no reason. I am genuinely so grateful we've come such a long way in our battle against ignorance of all sorts, from sexism to ableism, but it didn't feel like the movie had any sort of ulterior motive other than retelling Susanna's experiences, and that was nice. At least to me, it doesn't feel like it could even really be classified as a film with social commentary, as it's just shocking to be so, not to express any agenda.

Watching Girl, Interrupted again as an adult was an interesting experience. I remembered a lot of the movie, but in spite of that, the scenes hit differently. It wasn't any more shocking than it was back then, but it was somewhat more uncomfortable, especially since media has changed so much. This time around, there were no sudden (and shocking) drops of the R-word, surprisingly.