GIRL, INTERRUPTED (1999) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: James Mangold
Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall,
Brittany Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa Redgrave,
Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, Mary Kay Place
Winona over the cuckoo's nest, with the dark-eyed one as a troubled teenager who checks into a mental institution after chasing a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. This hasn't got the crushing sense of despair that ran through "Cuckoo's Nest". (There's a big difference between the head nurse played by Louise Fletcher in that movie and her counterpart played by Whoopi Goldberg in this one.) But the characters are annoyingly believable, it's very well acted, and Mangold does a good job of keeping the melodramatics under control. Jolie won an Oscar playing the ward's most outgoing and in-your-face crazy person, and Ryder, a skeleton wreathed in cigarette smoke, is as good as she's ever been.
