December 28, 1999
Web posted at: 2:56 p.m. EST (1956 GMT)

By Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- The good news is that writer-director James Mangold's "Girl, Interrupted" is one of the best films of the year. The bad news is that you have to be a hyper-sensitive 17-year-old girl to think so.

Based on Susanna Kaysen's account of her late-1960s internment in a mental institution, the film has its heart in the right place while being too superficial to score honest dramatic points. And Mangold, not exactly the smoothest filmmaker on the planet, doesn't know when to stop with the period signifiers.

The soundtrack contains a wealth of classic tunes, everything from Simon & Garfunkel to Van Morrison to The Band. And there's usually a TV in the background, blaring significant news stories and advertisements from the '60s. This barrage ensures that you won't forget where you are; it's easier than having the era naturally bubble up via subtle verbal and visual references. One psychiatrist even has a "Bobby Kennedy for President" poster prominently displayed in his front yard.

When you start raising posters to establish a time period -- and the campaign sign isn't the only '60s-centric placard in the film -- it's time to ease up on the sledgehammer.

Winona Ryder -- who's also an executive co-producer on the film -- plays the heroine, a lonely, suicidal teen named Susanna. Ryder is a reliable actress, and she might even turn out to be an exceptional one. It's good to see her on the screen again. But her porcelain skin and doe eyes emit a natural calm that's difficult to spike with self-destructive bile.

Chain-smoking Susanna is committed to the hospital after chasing a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka, an apparent response to her cold-hearted parents. The hospital is full of variously cracked or cracking young women who are meant to open Susanna's eyes to real pain and suffering. Unfortunately, the legitimate misery often takes place in another room, somewhere down the hall. Even calamitous electroshock treatments are talked about rather than shown.

The clear comparison here is with Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). Granted, "Cuckoo's Nest" is the ultimate anti-authority movie and you can't beat Jack Nicholson's performance as R.P. McMurphy. But that film, like the dazzling Ken Kesey novel that inspired it, establishes clear parameters for its rebellious confrontations.

McMurphy is the embodiment of the free-thinking youth movement, with Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher in the film) standing in for the pointlessly belligerent social order. McMurphy's so-called insanity represents something larger than a mere wise guy locked up in a hospital. The standoffs between McMurphy and Ratched have a hard-hitting resonance, and Kesey's dark, sardonic sense of humor doesn't allow for much preaching.

Just as Dan Quayle is no Jack Kennedy, Ryder is no Jack Nicholson. And Whoopi Goldberg sure as hell ain't Louise Fletcher. That's right, the stern authority figure who gooses things into action is played by none other than Goldberg, an actress of such mellow voice and benign grin that she couldn't provoke a Rottweiler.

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Goldberg's character is such a font of understanding that her flare-ups at Susanna's willfulness seem like mini-explosions that will quickly recede. Susanna doesn't seem all that rebellious and her caretaker doesn't seem all that uncomprehending.

The therapists -- including Jeffrey Tambor and Vanessa Redgrave, who's brilliant as the queen of no B.S. -- are decent enough people. You find yourself siding with the authority figures, not a good thing given the period subtext.

The girls in the ward ("young women" would be closer to the truth) aren't particularly well-drawn. One of them has terrible scars on her face from a childhood self-immolation, while another (played by Brittany Murphy, who's fairly creepy) will eat only chickens from her dad's deli. Then she stores the bones under her bed. You wouldn't want to hang with her, but she's hardly the most cinematic mental patient you've ever seen.

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There's little self-reflection in the dialogue, aside from Ryder's confrontations with the therapists. Each girl is simply issued a quirk that she drags around like a ball and chain.

The only patient who really gets to speak up is Lisa, a sexy, mouthy sociopath played by Angelina Jolie. If Ryder doesn't compare to Nicholson, Jolie manages to take up the slack. Alas, the Jack she's channeling is the one who created vainglorious creatures like the devil in "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987) and the Joker in "Batman" (1989).

There's no denying Jolie's physical appeal. She's got a body to die for and unforgettable, throw-pillow lips. She just shows off more than she acts, prancing around and repeatedly falling into "rebellious" postures, too aware of her own allure to bother inhabiting a character. Though undeniably charismatic, Jolie would be better off if she weren't so pleased with herself. But then she might run the risk of seeming like someone who's locked up in a psych ward.

"Girl, Interrupted" contains drug use, bad language and some quick sexual situations. High-school girls really should love it, and that's not a slight. Susanna's attempt to establish a more forgiving self-image might do them some good. Rated R. 127 minutes.