Review: 'Girl, Interrupted' moves to video

'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Special Edition' debuts on DVD

June 6, 2000
Web posted at: 1:48 p.m. EDT (1748 GMT)

By Scott Hettrick

'Girl, Interrupted'

(Columbia, VHS priced for rental, DVD $27.95, rated R) 1999.
Directed by James Mangold. Starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy, Elizabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Vanessa Redgrave, Jeffrey Tambor and Whoopi Goldberg.

There is so little of interest going on in "Girl, Interrupted" that there is not much motivation to stick around till the end. In fact, there is not a single thing that will engage viewers in the first place, nor after investing two hours of your time.

"Girl, Interrupted" is based on a true story about a young woman's two-year stay in a mental institution. The woman is not mentally ill but apparently just frustrated with her parents and unable or unwilling to cope with life in general. Hearing a questionable diagnosis that Susanna (Winona Ryder) has borderline personality disorder, her rich and emotionally detached parents suggest that their daughter get "a short rest" at a renowned mental hospital for young women. Whoopi Goldberg's character -- a nurse and disciplinarian -- gets it right when she scolds Susanna for being lazy and self-centered.

	NEW VIDEO RELEASES
For June 6: Girl, Interrupted Next Friday

With that plot offering little to chew on, the movie, through Susanna, introduces us to the other patients at the hospital. Susanna becomes infatuated with a volatile long-term resident named Lisa (Angelina Jolie) who seems no more mentally challenged than Susanna but has a penchant for causing problems and running away. But she always is tracked down and returned to the hospital.

Lisa also has a habit of being so brutally frank with the truly emotionally distressed patients that they wind up killing themselves. This seems to get overlooked by the hospital workers, who continue to let Lisa run wild and wreak emotional havoc.

Even Lisa's story comes off as one of little substance, so the filmmakers attempt to throw in some field-trip scenes with patients who are mere pale resurrections of characters of the far-superior "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

And the film's soundtrack is peppered with popular counter-culture songs of the 1960s to remind viewers -- unnecessarily -- that the film is set in that time period, even though there is little relevance to that fact. The songs are introduced so unexpectedly and out of context that the title of the movie should have been "Soundtrack, Interrupted."

DVD tips

Several new special-edition DVDs are worth noting:

"Fight Club Special Edition" (Fox, $34.98) is a double-disc set of four feature-length audio commentaries: by director David Fincher, writer Chuck Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls, several technical crew members, and one with Fincher and stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helen Bonham Carter.

The best way to utilize these tracks, rather than listening to each of them for 2 1/2 hours, is to listen to each's comments during the most interesting scenes. For instance, while Fincher says on his solo track during a short high-tech, computerized sex scene that he created the scene that way because he felt uncomfortable giving directions to actors on how to position themselves for sex, Norton says on his track that the scene represented Fincher's idea of sex.

The second disc is loaded with behind-the-scenes footage, alternate takes of scenes that can be viewed from several angles at the viewer's control and audio commentary explaining behind-the-scenes clips of the making of visual effects.

Also among the easy-to-use but complex matrix of extras are deleted scenes and outtakes, including the original cuts of two controversial scenes that were changed to minimize controversy: one, a line that was changed from Carter's character saying, "I want to have an abortion," to, "That was the best sex I've had since grade school"; and the other presenting more cut-aways to horrified crowd reaction to reduce the number of shots of Norton's character pummeling an opponent's face with his fist.

"Conan the Barbarian Collector's Edition" (Universal, $29.98) offers a terrific, extensive documentary on the evolution of the movie, which began with a script by Oliver Stone before it was turned over to producer Dino de Laurentiis, who hired John Milius to rewrite and direct it.

Also included in the documentary are engaging and amusing new interviews with Milius, Stone, de Laurentiis, star Arnold Schwarzenegger and co-stars James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Max von Sydow and Gerry Lopez, all of whom provide often fascinating anecdotes about stunts that went bad and other filming challenges.

Several deleted scenes appear in the documentary, including the bloody stabbing of Sydow.

Milius and Schwarzenegger provide an entertaining audio commentary throughout the film itself, which is presented in its full 2.35:1 wide-screen format but only the original two-channel mono sound.

"The Birds Collector's Edition" (Universal, $29.99) is a terrific wide-screen presentation (1.85:1) of the engrossing two-hour 1963 Hitchcock thriller. A nearly 90-minute documentary (strangely, there is no time encoded on it) is filled with endlessly entertaining anecdotes about mishaps with mechanical birds and revelations of cinematic tricks in new interviews with most of the original cast.

It also features tons of explanations and demonstrations of the groundbreaking special effects and matte paintings, incredible footage (probably too much at nearly 20 minutes) of star Tippi Hedren's lengthy screen test, and reconstructions with text and still photos of a deleted scene and an extended alternative ending that wasn't shot.

"Lethal Weapon," "Lethal Weapon 2" and "Lethal Weapon 3, Director's Cuts" (Warner, $24.98 each) make available the director's cuts of the movies that were released on VHS last year, with an extra seven minutes, four minutes and three minutes of footage, respectively.

The first one includes added suicidal heroics by Riggs (Mel Gibson) as he takes on a schoolyard sniper, and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) working out his 50th-birthday blues on the firing range.

Among the footage added to the second movie are scenes of Riggs impressing ladies at a hotel spa, Murtaugh receiving bad news about the damage to his station wagon and Leon (Joe Pesci) recalling a suspect's address.

Some of the new scenes in the third installment are one with Murtaugh's daughter (Traci Wolfe) concerning her father's overprotective nature, Lorna (Rene Russo) taking the wheel during an intimidation chase and a Rottweiler getting to know Riggs' dog Sam in Riggs' trailer.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Special Edition" (Fox, $29.98) brings to DVD the 25th-anniversary laserdisc edition of the movie released in 1994, which includes the delightful 45-minute documentary featuring then new and enormously engaging interviews with Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

There also is less entertaining but somewhat informative audio commentary by director George Roy Hill, cinematographer Conrad Hall and others.

Even if the extras aren't new, and the soundtrack featuring the terrific Burt Bacharach score and the "Rain Drops Keep Fallin' On My Head" song by B.J. Thomas is disappointing still in its original mono sound, getting this fun Western on DVD in its full 2.35:1 wide-screen format is worth the price, and the documentary is a wonderful bonus.

(c) 2000, Scott Hettrick. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Review: 'Girl, Interrupted' -- Committed drama
December 28, 1999
Ryder committed to 'Girl, Interrupted' role
December 27, 1999

"Girl, Interrupted"

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.