I'm going to change my reviewing style and include more spoiler-type material. It was just getting hard to describe anything without giving away any plot, and this made the last review quite short. I watched this movie today at the nearby Century Theater. Let me say again how nice the seats are after they remodeled it a couple of years back. Having a high back and being able to lean back and watch the movie comfortable is quite nice. Anyways, on to the review...

"Girl, Interrupted" stars Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen, a just-graduated-from- high-school teenager who is admitted into a mental institution (for women) after attempting to commit suicide. There, she meets the other patients and bonds with them, particularly the dynamic and forceful Lisa, played by Angelina Jolie. After a year in the institution, which culminates in an escape attempt to Disney World with Lisa, Susanna finally realizes that she has to face her problems and talk about them, and that's when she regains control of her life and is allowed to leave the institution at the end of the movie.

First off, this is a strong character drama, with only a little bit of suspense and action. It's all about how the rather damaged women, mostly teenagers, deal with each other and cope with their problems. Well, there were no interesting action movies or romantic movies so this genre is midway in my choices of what to watch. I enjoy these types of movies, and Winona and Angelina are quite good actresses. But there was a good chance I wouldn't have seen this movie if I had something more fun and less cerebral that I wanted to see.

Anyway, the movie is set about 1967 or so. The Vietnam War is sort of in the background. Martin Luther King Jr's assassination is announced on television, sometime in the movie. The state of psychotherapy is quite different than today. Each girl has a roommate, they're allowed to wander around in their wing, even wander outside. There are nurses around, bed checks, pills are dispensed to the women regularly. There is an isolation room. Actually there's a man's wing in the institution so I guess it's not women only.

Whoppi Goldberg plays the head nurse of the wing. She's relatively sympathetic yet doesn't put up with the girls' sass. Vanessa Redgrave plays the senior psychiatrist, who sees the more troubled patients. She does a good job as the older authority figure. Jeffrey Tambor once again plays a middle-aged sort of well-meaning yet a clueless about what's really going on sort of guy. His char- acter is the first line psychiatrist. Joanna Kerns, who I didn't recognize in the movie, makes a few short appearances as Susanna's mother. Susanna's father is played by someone I've seen before, although I can't spot him in the credit.

So what happens in the movie? Susanna is admitted after taking a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of vodka. She meets Georgina, the pathological liar; Daisy, the loner who has her own room and has a strange roast chicken problem; Polly, whose face has been disfigured in a fire; Cynthia and Janet, who have weight problems at both ends of the scale; and finally, once she is returned after another failed escape attempt, Lisa, who has been in the institution for the last eight years and is the most daring and self-destructive one.

They bond over the year, get to know each other. Late at night the girls go out and sneak into the tunnels that run betweent he buildings of the institution. They sneak into the psychiatrists office and look through their files. Thy're taken out for ice cream to celebrate Daisy's release. They get caught breaking the rules, and the punishment forces Lisa to run away again, taking Susanna with her. Something really bad happens, which don't want to reveal, and Susanna turns herself in as Lisa keeps going. This is the turning point when Susanna realizes that she needs help from the psychiatrists, and that she is finally willing to seek that help.

About 20 minutes left in the movie. Lisa is captured and returned, leading to a final confrontation as Susanna finally stands up to the controlling Lisa. A bit of a denouement, a sad goodby, and Susanna leaves the institution in a cab driven by the same driver (who is much changed) who drove her there a year ago. Some final thoughts ("over the years I saw some of them and not others, but I'll never forget them...") and the credits roll. There. Hopefully I didn't give away too much, since the dialog and interactions are the important thing and I only gave away the plot outline in a general sense.

I recommend this movie, more than "The Hurricane" and quite definitely more than "Supernova". Don't know if it's better than "The Green Mile", it's close. It's not a particularly happy story, or a sad one. It's based on a true story, and book. Winona Ryder is one of the executive producers. Angelina Jolie won a Golden Globe a few weeks ago for her role in this movie. So go watch it already.