Based on Susanna Kayson's memoirs of her suicide attempt and subsequent year in a mental institution, this 60's-era, Valium-addled coming-of-age tale is not fun: witness self-mutilation, the draft, and a dysfunctional friendship between sociopathic Lisa (Jolie) and angst-ridden Susanna (Ryder). It's not as intense as the mental-ward classic One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest, though. Instead of totalitarianism and on-screen shock treatment you've got a matronly nurse (Whoopi Goldberg) benignly watching you shave your legs.

Chirpy 60s pop (like Petula Clark's "Downtown") and harmless hijinks help break the at-times stomach-turning unpleasantness -- gosh, how bad can the institution be if you can sneak into the basement for a bit of bowling, right? -- but the film's occasionally mean-spirited black comedy does a better job of giving the viewer a break. This movie could have been a melodramatic yawn or a preachy medidation on the nature of sanity, but it's well-done enough to narrowly escape either fate.