Starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Angela Bettis, Jeffrey Tambor, Vanessa Redgrave, and Whoopi Goldberg, the film follows a young woman who spends 18 months institutionalized at a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt.

Lisa helps the girls sneak around at night in the hospital's underground tunnels and continuously provokes them and the staff, including the stern head nurse, Valerie Owens.

On a rare supervised group outing celebrating Daisy's impending release, the women visit an ice cream parlor.

In addition to her affair with Dr. Gilcrest, Susanna has a casual relationship with Toby, a young man who has been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War.

When Valerie finds the group sleeping in the hallway in the morning, she punishes the two women, particularly Lisa, who is subjected to electroshock treatment followed by solitary confinement.

A furious Susanna confronts Lisa, loudly accusing her of being dead inside and berating her for her abusive behaviors, becoming mentally and emotionally dependent on Claymoore, for being afraid of the world, and for being uncaringly unempathetic.

In June 1993, Columbia Pictures fought off a number of other studios to buy the film rights to Susanna Kaysen's memoir.

[3] Winona Ryder, who had also attempted to buy the film rights, ultimately partnered with producer Douglas Wick to develop the project as a star vehicle.

Reese Witherspoon, Christina Ricci, Katie Holmes, Gretchen Mol, Kate Hudson, Alicia Witt, Sarah Polley, and Rose McGowan all auditioned for unspecified roles.

[7] Parker Posey turned down the role of Lisa,[8][9] while Leelee Sobieski signed on to play Daisy but dropped out weeks before filming began after receiving an offer to star in Joan of Arc.

A scene in the trailer shows a van traveling towards downtown Harrisburg over the State Street Bridge, where the Capitol building is clearly visible.

The site's consensus states: "Angelina Jolie gives an intense performance, but overall Girl, Interrupted suffers from thin, predictable plotting that fails to capture the power of its source material.

"[17] Tom Coates from the BBC wrote: "Girl, Interrupted is a decent adaptation of [Kaysen's] memoir of this period, neatened up and polished for an audience more familiar with gloss than grit.

"[18] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times was critical of the screenplay adaptation from the source memoir, writing that it has "a hard time resisting manufacturing obvious, standard-issue drama of the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest knockoff variety," though he conceded that the performances of Ryder and Jolie help the film "stay as honest as it manages to sporadically be...

"[19] Paul Tatara of CNN panned the film's screenplay for containing little "self-reflection in the dialogue," adding that "Each girl is simply issued a quirk that she drags around like a ball and chain."

"[22] The San Francisco Chronicle's Peter Stack was unimpressed by the film, deeming it "a muddled production that misses the jarring tone of the autobiographical book by Susanna Kaysen on which it is based.

"[23] Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News gave the film a mixed review, awarding it two out of four stars, writing that "[Ryder] is often just a crumpled, listless figure on a bed, which, while true to the nature of depression, is not, cinematically speaking, the most arresting image," and likening the performances of Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave as "bordering on cameos".

[27] In 1973, the infamous phrase "dying with one's rights on" was coined by Darold Treffert, referring to the ultimate prioritization of patient autonomy over beneficence.

The theme of isolation also serves as a protective shield from the dangers of the outside world as even Lisa complains that "there's nobody to take care of you out there", and people like Torch are safe from an abusive home and drug-pushing environment.