MovieChat Forums > Girl, Interrupted (2000) Discussion > Great movie, very enjoyable but extremel...

Great movie, very enjoyable but extremely disrespectful

posted 11 years ago by MissyWalsh
9 replies | jump to latest

I really love this movie, but I think they should not have marketed it as a true story. They used the names and diagnosis of real people but the way the events deviated was shocking.

Susanna never ever escaped from the hospital. Her and Lisa were not great friends or attached to one another. Lisa escaped, 3 or 4 times and only at the most 3 days each time.

My biggest issue is with the Daisy scene, she did kill herself in her apartmet, but Susanna and Lisa were not there and had nothing to do with it, Lisa didn't push any buttons or confront her about her father. Why on earth would they add that (I know, for story), but it's so dispresectful to the 19 year old Daisy that killed herself. The real patients weren't even told any details, just called to a meeting and told Daisy had killed herself, that was it.

There was no confrontation between Susanna and Lisa ever mentioned in the memoir.

Lisa also was never allowed with the staff & patients for ice cream, after all her escapes. There were no confrontations with the professors wife.

I can't recall if the memoir mentioned explicitly anything about Susanna sleeping with an English professor?

I know that's Hollywood, right?

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] MissyWalsh 11 years ago

I'm not sure, I found this online though,

Susanna Kaysen, the author of the book on which this film is based, has stated that she really hates the movie and has described it on more than one occasion as "melodramatic drivel."

But part of what you have stated is my point, the book is not movie material, there's no real linear story, no real activity. To make it up feels disrespectful, I've seen people who have tried to find people like Lisa and Georgina and about Daisy's father, based on this movie.

Also the book makes only the vaguest reference to Daisy and her father having any kind of incestuous relationship, just seems to me, any way a poor way to make a movie. They didn't have to use real names etc.

But aside from my grumbles, you are right and it is a good, enjoyable movie, I really enjoy it otherwise.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] Haifis 11 years ago

An old neighbor I had knew Susanna Kaysen.
Apparently the real Daisy killed herself in the apartment near the Charles River in Boston. (Never did find out her real name but a source told me she was a woman Myrtle F.Gordon who died in 1967 but I'm not sure that source was valid. She had seen an obiturary of the lady and it was similiar to Daisy. Lived in an apartment, was young, said private service no visitors outside of the family.)
I wonder if its true.
Maybe I'll check thru microfilm.
I live 40 minutes away from Boston and the area Daisy killed herself.

"Remember me as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now, so you will be,"

[–] wylierichardson-966-922691 9 years ago

There is a clearly a story, it is just an incomplete one. The entire movie revolves around Susanna's stay in that mental hospital. It would have worked better as a 'triptych' - showing us the 'before' (i.e. what Susanna was doing / feeling that LED to her stay there in the first place), and the 'after' (how did she fare after leaving?). There are hints of a kind of fetishistic interest in psychosis / dysfunction, on the part of the film-makers. Take that 'Daisy' character (the one played by Brittany Murphy), and her lurid path to suicide.

[–] sailingcat10 10 years ago

I know it's not real, and I take it for what it is every time I watch it. Susanna's book is far more sympathetic, and I find her narrative really compelling. That said, I love the movie because of the similarities Claymore, as an institution, bears to women's colleges. The girls in the hospital were a lot like all the girls I knew in college.

"What's the score?"
"Dirty love." The Simpsons

[–] denise1234 9 years ago

This is one of those rare instances where I actually like the movie more than the book ~

"Much communication in a motion, without conversation or a notion"

[–] drgnndblls88 9 years ago

they used real life events from real people as a vehicle to trot out a narrative they wanted to....typical Hollywood. I mean, tell whatever stories you like, but how disingenuous. I say this as someone who also enjoyed watching this, but stuff like this I always keep in mind whenever I see a movie.

[–] Samuraibro 9 years ago

"BASED" on a true story.

If you want something real, go watch a documentary.