Ok, I saw the movie when it came out, and just recently read the book. I must admit (and it’s a very rare thing) I was disapointed. The movie was actually better than the book. My question is was the movie greatly dramatized, or did all that stuff actually happen to Susanna Kaysen? It’s hard to tell from the book as it’s written pretty vaguely. Was Kasen in on the writing of the screenplay? Did she provide more details tha she didnt include in her book? I know the bit about her escaping and going to Daisy’s house was fabricated. Was everything else as well?
Kaysen says in this article that she had nothing to do with the movie because “I just wanted the money”. Asked what she thought of the movie she said “I don’t like it.”
I haven’t seen the movie but did read the book and thought it sucked. It’s nothing but a lousy rip-off of The Bell Jar, which, IMHO, is simply an amazing book.
As I understand, the movie is pretty much a rip off of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which I have neither read nor seen.
I haven’t seen the movie or even heard of the book, but from what I gather it’s a giant ripoff of some other movie or book that I’ve never seen or read.
I read the book before seeing the movie. While some people might find the movie more entertaining, it is full of ridiculous things that would never happen in real life (and that do not come from Kaysen’s memoir). I can’t imagine that a 1960s mental hospital would allow a patient to keep a pet cat in her room.
Those rooms, by the way, were much nicer than the dorms at my school, which regularly gets a very high ranking in the Princeton Review when it comes to the quality of its dormitories.
I thought the movie was very unrealistic and the book was much better. The book is really just a small memoir and doesn’t have a cohesive storyline like The Bell Jar or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. However, it does provide some interesting insights into the “feel” of mental illness.
Regarding the realism of the movie–besides the whole cat thing, I was also struck by the number of breakable objects that could conceivably be used to hurt oneself or others (large mirrors, glass windows, etc.)
I thought the movie was so-so, and I enjoyed the book. It had no definite story line or happy ending. It was about mental illness. Even so, I identified with quite a few parts of it. I wouldn’t call it a rip off, it is a memoir. Maybe the author agreed to sell the movie rights for profit, but I imagine the book was more cathartic than profitable.
Or the girl with all the little porcelin figurines in her room! Yeah, right!
I really enjoyed the movie and didn’t have TOO much trouble look past the obvious similarities to OFOTCN. Actually, I thought the movie was absolutely phenomenal and I’m a guy so it’s not the whole women understanding women thing.
If you want to read a book about the “feel” of mental illness, read Mark Vonnegut’s (Kurt’s son) book The Eden Express. The guy is an amazing writer like his father, and it’s an autobiographical account of how he discovered he had schizophrenia.