Girl, Interrupted (1999)

GIRL, INTERRUPTED (seen on 6-2-2009)
Director: James Mangold (of 'Walk the Line' fame)
Starring: Winona Rider, Angelina Jolie (Oscar), Whoopy Goldbertg, Vanessa Redgrave, etc.
It's about the otherwise normal looking people being committed to mental institutions. Reminds you of ONE FLEW OVER CUCKOO'S NEST, but more intense with the screenplay often reaching great heights with its probing quality. This is based on SUSANNA KAYSEN'S novel of the same title. The film version is so good that one wants to go back to the novel and read it also.
Susanna Kaysen (played by Winona Rider) gets sent to a mental institution for what is called borderline personality disorder. But she is intense, sensitive, empathises with others' suffering, and intelligent. We are with her when she raises a number of questions through the film. For one, she asks the psychiatrists there, "borderline between what and what." There are several other memorable moments, but I can't recall the details of these moments. She is often bowled over by the insanity of the doctors themselves in their approach to their wards. At one point her lover visits her and offers escape (from the institution) to Canada but she firmly rejects it because she hates to leave her friends at the institution for whom she feels sorry. She bonds with a number of them and tries to help them in their moments of agony. She especially likes the bold aggressive and often brutally (and dangerously) honest Lisa (played by Jolie) with whom she once runs away. But eventually she is repelled by her brutal and insensitive frankness (causing the suicide of her friend) and returns to the institution. She decides to get well (which meant learning 'control') to leave the institution. She finally leaves but is sad to leave her friends behind. She wants to become a writer. The main reason why one ends up liking the film is its intense and sensitive moments and, of course, its screenplay.