Angelina Jolie won the Oscar from her first nomination for her performance as Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted.
Girl, Interrupted is a fine movie about a depressed girl who is admitted into a mental institution: it focuses on her relationship with fellow patients and her slow process of self-discovery. I don't think the movie is particularly great: I don't think it's particularly well-written, I don't think it's particularly well-directed and I don't think it's particularly remarkable as a whole - but, nonetheless, it works. The movie might not be a masterpiece by any means but it is fairly enjoyable and engaging, it flows well and it has a few good performances to boost it. In the leading role, Winona Ryder doesn't give one of her most memorable performances (she is often overshadowed by the flashier supporting players and her big scene towards the end is a bit overdone) but she gives a fine portrayal of her character's vulnerability. The supporting cast is uniformly fine, with Brittany Murphy being particularly touching as one of the patients.
Angelina Jolie is an actress that I find talented but that not always utilizes her acting abilities properly: when she truly commits to a role, she excels; when she doesn't, she delivers underwhelming performances in which her glamour and star-power can barely make up for the lacking characterization of the role (like in The Tourist). Her performance in Girl, Interrupted is easily her best because she finds the perfect mix between her acting talent and her overwhelming screen-presence - it works so well because she puts her appealing charisma at the service of the role and not the role at the service of her charisma. And indeed her star-power fits perfectly the role of Lisa, a manipulative, unpredictable, wild yet oddly fascinating sociopath. As soon as she enters the movie, she absolutely steals the scene from everyone else and commands the screen with her fiercely compelling performance: it's an extremely exciting turn from her because you simply never know what to expect from Lisa and never know what's coming next. It's an extremely tricky role because not only it requires Jolie to handle difficult, loud scenes but also because she has to make Lisa the despicable character she is without ever making her power and control over the other patients in question: Jolie solves this task easily by projecting her own unique charm on the character while still showing clearly the unlikeable sides of Lisa. Jolie makes it clear that Lisa doesn't genuinely care for Susanna and the other girls - she may laugh and have fun with them but Jolie shows a lack of interest and empathy in Lisa that makes you see immediately that she wouldn't mind turning against them if they get on her way. Still, it's always completely understandable why the other girls would be so drawn to Lisa and would look up to her so much because Jolie is absolutely magnetic and absorbing in every single scene and portrays the character with an incredible amount of energy and life. The screenplay of the movie can get a bit lame sometimes but Angelina Jolie manages to make every single line work. Also I particularly love how she delivers her lines of mockery towards the other patients - it makes you always wonder whether she is just jocking or there is something much meaner and darker behind them.
In the second half of the movie Jolie goes deeper and darker inside her character's personality and I love how, as the movie progresses, she shows that Lisa can not only be aggressive and mean but also outright cruel. A great example of this is the scene in which Lisa, after having escaped from the hospital with Susanna (Ryder), goes to visit Daisy (Murphy), one of the patients who has been recently released, and she taunts her for still cutting herself and being released not because she recovered, but because the doctor gave up, and accuses her of having and incestuous relationship with her own father and enjoying it. It's a brilliantly acted scene by Jolie as the truly is amazing in portraying the viciousness and cruelty of Lisa in that moment - just look at the pure malice in her eyes during her monologue. But she is terrific in showing that behind her cruelty there is a lot of bitterness and jealousy - Lisa knows she might never get out of Claymoore and she knows that outside the hospital there is no one that cares about her and is waiting for her to be released. The scene towards the end in which Susanna stands up to Lisa and accuses her of being emotionally dead because she is lonely and nobody cares about her is supposed to be Winona Ryder's big scene but Angelina Jolie completely owns it by finally unleashing Lisa's pain and desperation that lies underneath. And she also ends her performance on a high note thanks to her brief final scene with Ryder, in which she subtly suggests that maybe in the future Lisa will manage to recover and finally find happiness.
In the end, Angelina Jolie delivers a fantastic performance in Girl, Interrupted and gives a performance that never feels like needless showboating because she builds extremely well Lisa as a complex, three-dimensional character. She is a true force of nature, and her layered and compelling characterization is ultimately one of the very few reasons the movie is still worth-watching.
4.5/5
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