One Of Angelina Jolie’s Biggest Hits Is Coming to Netflix This Week
One of Angelina's most memorable films is streaming on Netflix soon!
One of the best things about having a Netflix subscription is checking out all the new movies they’ll be releasing for the week. You can check out some classics, some new movies, and some movies you might have missed. This week, you can check out a killer Angelina Jolie performance in the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted.
Girl, Interrupted is a movie based on a memoir of the same name by Susanna Kaysen. The memoir chronicles Susanna’s 18-month stay at a mental hospital during the 1960s. The film starred Winona Ryder in the lead role, with Angelina Jolie as fellow mental patient Lisa Rowe. The movie also starred Clea Duvall, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Angela Bettis, and more. It was directed by James Mangold.
In the movie, Winona Ryder’s Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and sent to a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt. Angelina Jolie’s character is a diagnosed sociopath. Her character has escaped the facility several times and is a long-tenured patient at the hospital. She ends up forming a close bond with Susanna.
Girl, Interrupted didn’t have the easiest road to reach the theatres. Colombia pictures battled it out for film rights to the memoir. Eventually, Winona Ryder and producer Douglas Wick teamed up to develop the movie before it was stuck in development hell for years when they tried to find a script. Finally, with the help of James Mangold, a script was settled on in 1998 and filming finished in 1999.
The film itself received pretty mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the critic score is a middling 53%, with many reviews citing a weak plot as the basis for their critique. The audience score is actually a respectable 84%, so there are definitely things to like about this film. Namely, Angelina Jolie’s performance. One thing that critics and audience agree on is that Jolie put on an intense, powerhouse acting clinic that makes the film worth a watch. In fact, the performance was so good that it netted her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actor’s Guild Award for the performance.
As for the author of the memoir herself, she wasn’t the biggest fan of the film. She wasn’t a fan of the added plot points and melodrama that she deemed unnecessary. If you head to Metacritic, the views mirror Rotten Tomatoes pretty closely with critics settling on a 51. So, the critics and the author weren’t the biggest fans, but if you’re in the mood for an excellent, award-winning performance from Angelina Jolie you might still have an enjoyable watch.
As far as box office goes, it wasn’t a smash by any means. With a $40 million budget and a worldwide gross of $48.3 million, it was able to pull a profit, but producer and distributor Colombia Pictures would have presumably liked to see some better numbers. Still, a profit is a profit.
If you check out Girl, Interrupted and decide that you can’t get enough Angelina Jolie, she has a few more titles on Netflix that might be worth your time. You have The Tourist which is a romantic thriller co-starring Johnny Depp. If you want to check out her directing chops, there’s By the Sea which she also wrote and co-starred in with her ex-husband Brad Pitt. To see her in action mode, there’s Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. All of these are worth the watch in some way or another, whether you want some light action fare or a serious drama, Jolie has you covered.
Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie has been keeping busy outside of Netflix releases of her old movies. Recently, she co-starred in the Marvel movie Eternals where she played Thena, a member of the Eternals race. The Eternals have powers like super strength, speed, and durability to fight another race called the Deviants. Thena is one of the Eternal’s strongest fighters. Just like Girl, Interrupted, Eternals saw mixed reviews from critics with audiences enjoying the film overall. Being a Marvel movie, Eternals also did much better at the box office.
If you’re a fan of Angelina Jolie, there’s a lot of content out on streaming services for you to enjoy. Make sure to check out Girl, Interrupted on Netflix if you want to see the reason she won her first Oscar.
