This is a top film. It's a little disturbing/shocking, and engages the heart a lot more than the mind.

The acting is faultless, Winona - well, what can you say - and the rest of the cast shape up very nicely. You can't help loving all those girls (as Winona's character ends up doing), and Whoopi does the business as usual.
Angelia Jolie though... I guess she's a good actress, but it's impossible to tell since she plays exactly the same character in all the films I've seen (wild eyed magnetic vixen woman).

On a technical note, the DVD looks and sounds great (Dolby Digital, with that cool helicopter show-off sequence at the beginning), and one of the best director's commentary's I've listened to - where he actually shows his art: why and how camera angles and cuts were chosen, the location, the lighting. Often these commentaries rapidly degenerate into back-slapping and reminiscing, but not so Girl, Interrupted.

So I think it would have to get full marks - not a relaxing or even enjoyable film to watch, but you can't help but to get drawn in and really care about the characters. And it is fundamentally an optimistic and even upbeat film, strange as it sounds. Unlike that amazing opus Moulin Rouge, it is a film full of hope and a feeling that there is a way out - and that it is possible to make sense of this crazy life.