Girl, Interrupted

Plot

Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), 18 years old in April 1967, voluntarily checks herself into Claymoore Hospital after an overdose of aspirin and her stay extends for over a year. She denies the accusation from many that she was attempting to commit suicide. Nurses and therapists are surprised when Susanna acknowledges that she does not actually want to go to college and would like to become a writer.

She befriends fellow patients Polly "Torch" Clark (Elisabeth Moss), Georgina Tuskin (Clea DuVall), Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), Janet Webber (Angela Bettis), Cynthia Crowley (Jillian Armenante) and forms a small troupe of troubled women in her ward. Susanna is enchanted in particular by Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie) when she sees her cause a scene. When Lisa returns to the ward after running away she notices that her old best friend's place has been taken by Susanna. She demands to know what happened to her best friend, eventually realizing that she had committed suicide. Lisa befriends Susanna and the two start causing trouble. Lisa encourages Susanna to stop taking her medications and/or trade them with others, and generally resist the influences of therapy.

During a visit outside the ward at a nearby ice cream shop, Susanna is confronted by her mother's friend, the angry wife of a man Susanna had an affair with, and her daughter. The woman harshly berates Susanna, but Lisa intervenes with a verbal assault, horrifying the older woman. As a result, Lisa loses her outside privileges.

Susanna's former boyfriend, Tobias "Toby" Jacobs (Jared Leto), comes to visit her. Toby discovers that he is going to get drafted, and he tells her he wants them to run away to Canada together. He tells her she isn't crazy and that the girls in the asylum aren't really her friends. But she refuses to go with him.

It is shown that Polly observes the couple almost wistfully as they speak outside, perhaps reflecting on her own unattractiveness and how it has impeded her from having such devotion from a man. That night, she awakes screaming. The nurses remove her and place her into solitary confinement with the intention of calming her down, but she continues sobbing. After all of the staff went to bed Susanna steals a guitar and she and Lisa sit outside Polly's room, singing "Downtown" by Petula Clark. Eventually a male orderly notices and Susanna seduces him in order for him not to report the incident, they fall asleep outside Polly's room. In the morning, Valerie Owens, the RN (Whoopi Goldberg) sees the two, she exclaims she is sick of her promiscuity and is referring her to the therapists.

The next morning, Susanna is called into the therapist's office, where she is analyzed once more. Susanna meets the head psychiatrist, Dr. Sonia Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), and attempts to shut her out with a nasty attitude. Wick decides to have Susanna be her patient from now on. She is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Lisa is also taken in to see the doctor but doesn't return, and Susanna falls into a depression. The frustrated nurse, Valerie, has had enough and throws Susanna into a cold bath to wake her. Susanna attacks her verbally.

Lisa returns, and she and Susanna break out of Claymoore. After hitching a ride, they spend the night at the house of the recently released Daisy, whom Lisa antagonizes in her usual fashion. She accuses Daisy of having incestuous sex with her father. It is revealed that Daisy continues cutting herself. Perhaps as a reaction to Lisa's words, Daisy hangs herself the next morning. Lisa runs away before anything could happen, trying to convince Susanna to come with her but she is mortified and stays. Susanna calls the police and returns to the hospital. Susanna also adopts Daisy's cat, Ruby. In the next few weeks, she begins to cooperate with her doctors and responds to her therapy, writing and painting. She is scheduled to be released.

At that point, Lisa is caught and returned by the police. Upon finding out about Susanna's pending release, Lisa targets Susanna for ridicule and emotional abuse. On her last night, Susanna awakens to discover Lisa in the maze of corridors beneath the ward, reading Susanna's diary to Georgina and Polly, including all of the private thoughts and comments she has made about the other residents, including how she thought Lisa was already dead, which she eventually declares to her. The other girls turn on Susanna, with Lisa particularly vicious. In the ensuing dispute Lisa threatens to stab herself with a large hypodermic needle, but Georgina's words disarm her. Susanna confronts Lisa, telling her the truth Lisa has been longing to hear, and Lisa has never been told the truth before about her illness, and this ends up being the thing that puts her on the road to recovery.

Susanna is released the next day. Before she leaves, she visits Lisa and talks to her again, telling her that she will get out and that she must come and see her. As Susanna leaves, she says goodbye to all her friends, giving Polly her adopted cat Ruby, reconciling with Georgina and gets into the cab. At the end of the film, Susanna states that by the 1970s, most of her friends were released and some she saw and some never again.