Plot

Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), 18 years old in April 1967, voluntarily checks herself into Claymoore Hospital after an overdose of aspirin and her stay extends for over a year. She denies the accusation from many that she was attempting to commit suicide. Nurses and therapists are surprised when Susanna acknowledges that she does not actually want to go to college and would like to become a writer. She befriends fellow patients Polly "Torch" Clark (Elisabeth Moss), Georgina Tuskin (Clea DuVall), Daisy Randone (Brittany Murphy), Janet Webber (Angela Bettis), and Cynthia Crowley (Jillian Armenante) and forms a small troupe of troubled women in her ward. Susanna is particularly enchanted by Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), a charismatic sociopath. When Lisa returns to the ward after running away she notices that her old best friend's place has been taken by Susanna. She demands to know what happened to her best friend, eventually realizing that she had committed suicide. Lisa befriends Susanna and the two start causing trouble. Lisa encourages Susanna to stop taking her medications and/or trade them with others, and generally resist the influences of therapy. During a visit outside the ward at a nearby ice cream shop, Susanna is confronted by her mother's friend, the angry wife of a man Susanna had an affair with, and her daughter. The woman harshly berates Susanna, but Lisa intervenes with a verbal assault, horrifying the older woman. As a result, Lisa loses her outside privileges. Susanna's former boyfriend, Tobias "Toby" Jacobs (Jared Leto), comes to visit her. Toby reveals that he is about to be drafted, and invites her to run away to Canada with him. He tries to convince her that she isn't crazy and that the girls in the asylum aren't really her friends, but Susanna refuses to go with him. It is shown that Polly observes the couple as they speak outside. That night, she awakens screaming. The nurses remove her and place her into solitary confinement to calm her down, but she continues sobbing. To cheer her up, Susanna steals a guitar from the music room and sits outside Polly's room with Lisa, singing "Downtown" by Petula Clark. When a male orderly notices them, Susanna seduces him to keep him from reporting the incident. Afterwards, the two girls fall asleep outside Polly's room. In the morning, Valerie Owens, the RN (Whoopi Goldberg) sees the two, exclaims that she is sick of their antics and is referring them to the therapists. The next morning, Susanna is called into the therapist's office, where she is analyzed once more. Susanna meets the head psychiatrist, Dr. Sonia Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), and attempts to shut her out with a nasty attitude. In response, Wick decides to take Susanna as her patient. She is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Lisa is also taken to see the doctor but does not return, and Susanna falls into a depression. Frustrated with Susanna's noncompliance, Valerie throws her into a cold bath to wake her. Susanna attacks her verbally. Lisa returns, and she and Susanna break out of Claymoore. After hitching a ride, they spend the night at the house of the recently released Daisy, whom Lisa antagonizes in her usual fashion. She accuses Daisy of having incestuous sex with her father. It is revealed that Daisy continues cutting herself. Daisy hangs herself the next morning. Unfazed by the suicide, Lisa searches her pocket and takes away whatever cash she could find and nonchalantly leaves the house on her own, but a mortified Susanna stays behind to phone an ambulance and subsequently returns to the hospital. Susanna also adopts Daisy's cat, Ruby, in her wake. In the next few weeks, she begins to cooperate with her doctors and

responds to her therapy, expressing her feelings through writing and painting. She is scheduled to be released. At that point, Lisa is caught and returned by the police. Upon learning about Susanna's pending release, Lisa targets Susanna for ridicule and emotional abuse. On her last night at Claymoore, Susanna awakens to discover Lisa in the maze of corridors beneath the ward, reading Susanna's diary to Georgina and Polly, including all of the private thoughts and comments she has made about the other residents, including how she thought Lisa was already dead, which she eventually declares to her. The other girls turn on Susanna, with Lisa particularly vicious. In the ensuing dispute Lisa threatens to stab herself with a large hypodermic needle, but Georgina's words disarm her. Susanna confronts Lisa, telling her that she is 'dead' as her 'heart is cold'. This puts her on the road to recovery. Susanna is released the next day. Before she leaves, she visits Lisa and talks to her again, telling her that she will get out and that she must come and see her. As Susanna leaves, she says goodbye to all her friends, giving Polly her adopted cat Ruby and reconciling with Geor