2. The Other Characters
When Sweet Pea escapes the asylum, this is her finally escaping the trauma of her mind and entering the real world again. This explains why the Wise Man appears as her bus driver and the young soldier is a passenger - the young soldier is a reminder of both the horrors of war (i.e. mental trauma) and the fact that her innocence has still survived in some form, while the Wise Man is her positive male role model, her fatherly guide who literally drives her into paradise and into salvation. The entire film is effectively one long therapuetic session - only Sweet Pea and Dr Gorski are real with Dr Gorski as Sweet Pea's therapist or psychiatrist. that explains why Gorski starts the film off a strict instructor, literally making the other girls perform for the whims and entertainment of the male clients that Sweet Pea despises. Later, however, Gorski becomes more sympathetic as Sweet Pea begins to make more progress, becoming a protector for the girls and later the one who cares about them. Her line to Sweet Pea in the dance studio of "Stop. Where are you right now?" is deceptively telling - she's literally asking the real Sweet Pea where her head is at.