Girl, Interrupted

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Shrewd, tough, and lively -- a junior-league "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

TNT RoughCut Sarah Raskin

Despite uneven pacing -- Girl, Interrupted deftly collapses then and now to create a very personal film filled with heart-tugs and surprisingly funny moments.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

They have turned a brief, appealing, honest autobiography by Susanna Kaysen into a long, appealing, rather dishonest film.

Miami Herald Phoebe Flowers

A rare movie, one that manages to be both quiet and electrifying, touching and unnerving. But it is not a great movie, even though its stars deserve for it to be.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Fabulously acted throughout.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

In Winona Ryder's case, Girl Interrupted is a showcase in which her brittle, angry portrait shows she has graduated from ingenue to actress.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The performances in Girl, Interrupted resonate, but the movie does not.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Top performances keep true-life mental ward tale Girl, Interrupted soaring, despite a script that frequently drifts into genre clichés.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Jolie's explosive performance surpasses all expectations and renders the film a veritable must-see.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

For all its somber heaviness and reverential gravity, it never quite pulls all the elements and themes together.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The movie -- even though it's based on real events -- seems unsatisfying and unconvincing.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

It's an odd mixture of an unsentimental, darkly humorous take on mental illness with the usual Hollywood loony-bin cliches.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

There's too much control in it and not enough danger.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The story, having failed to provide itself with character conflicts that can be resolved with drama, turns to melodrama instead.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There's very little plot, and director Mangold's attempts to make a connection between the social confusion of the '60s and Susanna's inner turmoil don't really work.

Variety Emanuel Levy

A solid central performance by Winona Ryder and a captivating wild turn by Angelina Jolie in the yarn's flashiest role.

Newsweek David Ansen

Barring one dreadfully trumped-up climactic scene, they've managed to avoid the usual asylum-movie cliches.

Village Voice Abby McGanney Nolan

Contains some nicely restrained turns, like Clea Duval as Kaysen's Oz-obsessed roommate, but mainly it's a showcase for Ryder's winsome victim

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Unusual in that it spotlights a common but largely unsung variety of teenage female angst.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

A small, intense period piece with a tough-love attitude toward lazy, self-indulgent little girls flirting with madness.

Film.com Peter Brunette

An excellent coming-of-age story that is, for once, and very happily, focussed on a teenage girl.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

A sappy, muddled production that misses the jarring tone of the autobiographical book by Susanna Kaysen on which it is based.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Always worth watching when Angelina Jolie steps to the fore. Somehow, she takes a thuddingly ill-conceived role and turns it into gold

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Ryder's commitment is impressive. If her movie only had her courage.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Mangold ultimately delivers the same film any number of other Hollywood journeyman could've made from this material, and the results are predictable and stale.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Tired conventions, hoary themes and obvious conclusions.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

Doesn't come close to matching the emotional depth and power of Frank Perry's 1962 "David and Lisa," the most involving and affecting film I've ever seen about teenagers and mental illness.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

Mangold can't escape the fact that instead of someone in the throes of a genuine existential crisis, his star comes off as -- to paraphrase nurse Whoopi Goldberg -- a spoiled, lazy girl who's afraid to face life.

Film.com John Hartl

Mangold ultimately can't displace memories of "An Angel at My Table," "Lilith," "The Snake Pit," "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" and other, stronger accounts of young women placed in mental institutions.

Film.com Gemma Files

Ends up suffering from the classic diseases of book-to-film adaptation: triteness, overreliance of narration, and a general "need" to impose classic dramatic structure on what is not a particularly dramatic narrative.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

It's as if the book itself has been locked up and institutionalized, forced to conform to a system that all but obliterates its own unique personality.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

For a movie about people with hugely complicated inner lives, this sadly unconvincing drama stays resolutely on the surface, rarely hinting at anything like an insight or idea.