Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.
The main characters are all more or less abandoned by their parents. They are not children, but young adults. They are placed in a mental health facility, but they are all at least emotionally abandoned and some of them also physically abandoned.
Some of you really need to learn what gaslighting is. Gaslighting is an abuse tactic in which someone attempts to undermine another person's sanity and convince them that they are mentally unstable and incompetent. This does not happen in this film.
Not really for spectacle, but there are several instances of female characters being mistreated by hospital staff and other patients. Lisa is put into compromising restraints and given electroshock therapy, and Lisa herself hits and lashes out at Georgina and Suzanna.
Not traditionally however, at the start, Susanna is retrained to a hosptial bed with something that looks like a belt, this is due to her needing her stomach pumped ect,
Characters are seen consistently smoking cigarettes throughout the movie, and taking pills for their mental illness. one girl is clearly addicted to said pills.
Daisy's cat is wandering around upstairs meowing in concern on the morning of her suicide. The cat is happily adopted by Polly at the end of the film, though
The restraint scenes can be extremely triggering for ppl who have themselves been hurt by the psychiatric systems. Physical/violent restraining and the systemic restraining that is the removal of basic human rights, by the psychiatric systems.
Not necessarily beaten up but one girl hits / slaps another for something harmless and then near the end a girl hits the main character across the head with a book twice
Not excessive, but there is a disturbing scene which shows the corpse of a girl who has hung herself and slit her wrists. this isn’t very graphic, it’s more emotionally disturbing than anything
Minors are not sexualized on screen, but there's a lot of hints to at least one character being molested as a child and also currently by her father. And another character having a "relationship" with her English teacher. The characters are supposed to be 16-19 years old.
About halfway through the film, Suzanna abruptly wakes up to Lisa looming over her. The camera rapidly cuts to a close-up of Lisa's face and the music crescendoes jarringly.
After the first scene, the next scene is Susanna in a hospital with doctors/nurses rushing around her (you will clearly be able to tell that the scene changed, and you have time to mute it after the scene change) and she leans over the side of the bed and v*s, no visual at all but I’ve been told that there was audio, so just mute it until she leans back into the bed
At the very beginning, Georgina is sweeping broken glass off the floor and picks up a full syringe.
Suzanna is forcibly injected with Valium. We see the needle go into her arm.
Finally, at the end, Lisa almost attempts suicide with a syringe full of an unknown substance, but she drops it and doesn't inject herself. This is the same syringe that we saw in the beginning.
The vast majority of the movie happens within a psychiatric institution. There are some notable instances of staff saying pretty offensive things to patients about their conditions.
Susanna attempts suicide at the beginning and another characters dies by suicide towards the end. The actual act isn’t shown but her body is shown after.
Daisy is said to struggle with an eating disorder, she regularly compulsively consumes and an entire chicken from her fathers deli, she is found to have multiple rotting carcasses of such hidden under her bed (representing both his visits which are indicative of incest/rape, and the consumption of the chickens themselves).
There are also mentions of laxative abuse and purging on her part:
Lisa: “You’re a laxative junkie...”
Daisy: “I like my dad’s chicken, and when I eat something else, I puke.”
No, but there are horrible therapies used in the sixties such as electro shock therapy mentioned and it is set in a psych ward so if harmful therapies in general are triggering, i’d be careful of watching
Around 1 hr 27 minutes, Lisa taunts a character about how her "safety net" isn't preventing her from wanting to slit her wrists. The character is found hanged and bleeding at 1 hr 32 minutes, which Lisa is rather insensitive.
Some of the subject matter might be triggering for autistic people and autistic women in particular. The film takes place in the 60s in a mental institution for “troubled” young women, so there is plenty of generalized ableism and misogynistic attitudes about women and mental health. There are depictions of forced medication/treatment, restraints, solitary confinement and shock therapy. There are no characters explicitly diagnosed with autism but a few of the characters do have autistic traits.
A character mentions a "transvestite in the men's ward," and it's unclear whether this is in referral to a gender-nonconforming man or a trans woman. Either way it's generally considered a derogatory term today.
A character is sexually abused by her father, though never on screen. Lisa tries to get under this character's skin by saying she likes her dad abusing her.
Susanna and Toby lie naked in bed while talking (no visible nudity). They later are shown making out in bed while Toby's pants are partially pulled down.
[SPOILERS] I am fairly squeamish, but the blood and gore in this movie didn’t disturb me. A characters recent self harm wounds are shown, but this is not very bloody at all. That same characters corpse is later shown having hung herslef and with fresher, bloodier self harm wounds. I would say the film’s plot and storylines are more disturbing than any of the blood or gore in it