Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living... in the 1960s, in a women’s mental hospital after chasing 50 aspirin with a bottle of vodka. Even considering the aspirin, Susanna's surrounded by women much crazier – including her roommate Georgina, who is determined to live in the land of Oz, and a girl who eats grapes from the wallpaper.
Profession... aspiring writer. Susanna thinks her stay in the hospital will give her good material for her writing, so she’s keeping a journal of everything that happens. But her social worker at the hospital is trying to convince her to become a dentist, telling Susanna that it's nice, clean work.
Interests... spending time with Lisa, whom everyone else considers a psychopath. Susanna, though, thinks she's cool. And as the two grow increasingly closer, Lisa's rebellious ways begin to rub off.
Relationship Status... single, though her ex-boyfriend occasionally visits. Toby's number is coming up in the draft, so he wants to escape with her to Canada. But Susanna's not sure if she should join him or stay in the hospital – probably not a good sign for her chances at rekindling their relationship.
Challenge... existential despair. Though she sees her therapist, Dr. Wick, three times a week, Susanna still struggles with suicidal inclinations. As she tells a nurse, “I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can't. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside.”
Personality... creative but troubled. Susanna's been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which means that her insecure self-image leads Susanna to commit impulsive, self-damaging actions. The label might be accurate, but it's also hardly something Susanna needs a shrink to tell her.
Get to Know her in...
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Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Girl Interrupted is the searing true story of Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), a young woman who finds herself at a renowned mental institution for troubled young women, where she must choose between the world of people who belong on the inside—like the seductive and dangerous Lisa (Angelina Jolie)—or the often difficult world of reality on the outside.
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In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years in the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele—Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles—as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.
