Overall Rating
  Awesome: 63.58%
Worth A Look: 24.07%
Average: 2.47%
Pretty Bad: 4.94%
Total Crap: 4.94%
10 reviews, 102 user ratings
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| Ghost World |
by Collin Souter
"One of the most realistic movies of the year is based on a comic book!?!"
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“Ghost World” tells the story of three kinds of outsiders: 1) The compulsive outsider, (2) the guy who can’t belong to a club that would have someone like him for a member, and (3) the outsider who can’t help but cross the line to normalcy. The conclusion these three characters come to at the end might surprise you, but you will most likely find yourself relating to all three of their situations.Like Enid (Thora Birch), I, too, am a packrat. I can’t throw away anything. Like Seymour (Steve Buscemi), I am a proud collector of music memorabilia (but only U2 items). And like Rebecca (Scarlett Johanssen), I can’t help but feel the pull of practical adult responsibility. Reality bites, and “Ghost World” rings so true to life, it makes you long for the days of high school when being an outsider with a best friend was actually kinda fun.
The movie starts at a high school graduation where we meet Enid and Rebecca, two life-long friends who have their own private jokes, equal disdain for anything having to do with an establishment and who have no interest in going to college for the sake of a boring office job. They want to get an apartment together, follow around strange townsfolk and occasionally bother their friend who works at a convenient store. Enid has a razor-sharp acid-tongued wit that makes Jeannine Garafalo sound like Martha Stewart. Johanssen’s Rebecca seems just along for the ride, but that will explain itself later.
One day, they come across an ad in the personals from a guy wanting to get in touch with a woman he once glanced at in an airport. The girls decide they MUST call the poor shlub and pretend to be the girl. They call and arrange a meeting at a 50’s diner that plays modern-day R&B hip-hop. They drag along their friend, Josh (Brad Renfro), from the convenient store who couldn’t care less. In walks Seymour (Buscemi, who gives his best performance since “Living In Oblivion”), a needy-looking skinny guy who orders a milkshake and waits…and waits and waits and waits. Meanwhile, Enid and her friends look on.
Eventually, Enid and Rebecca feel sorry for the guy. They decide to follow him to his house where he and his roommate sell records and collectibles on their front lawn. The horn-rimmed black-haired Enid buys an old 78 blues record called “The Devil Took My Woman” and finds herself playing it constantly. Intrigued, she and Rebecca go to a party thrown by Seymour where older, lonely male outsiders go to talk antiques and buy-and-sell vinyl rarities (think the “High Fidelity” crowd, 20 years later). Enid takes a liking to Seymour’s collector mentality and looks up to him for it. Their relationship develops and she vows to find him a woman to be with, because she can’t bare the thought of a world where a nice guy like Seymour can’t find a significant other.
Meanwhile, Enid’s friendship with Rebecca starts to head south as Rebecca holds a steady daytime job at a Starbucks-like coffee shop instead of running around with Enid all day talking to strangers. Enid promises to get a job “tomorrow,” but seems reluctant to hold a job for more than a day. The apartment hunting goes nowhere, Enid’s father brings back an old “monstrous” girlfriend to live in the house and Seymour eventually finds a woman. Reality bites, alright.
“Ghost World” finds many aching truths to meditate on regarding life after high school and while doing so, it presents a hilarious and vivid microcosm of America within this small suburban town. A shirtless guy with noticeable tan-lines and a mullet buys a ton of Slim-Jims with the bravado of a rock star. A man sits waiting all day at a bus stop where a bus line has been cancelled for years. A well-meaning, but pretentious, Laurie Anderson look-alike high school art teacher (played by the great Illeana Douglas) regards a pile of wire hangers as a representation of fertility. And a young couple cannot last as a couple unless they can agree on the music they like (which is important!). Enid and Rebecca want to stand outside everything and look in, but they do it with curiosity while trying desperately to find their way through it. Through this microcosm, “Ghost World” has some of the biggest laughs all year without always resorting to cynicism.
Terry Zwigoff directed and co-wrote “Ghost World” with Daniel Clowes who created the original graphic novel (or comic book. I myself don’t know the difference). Zwigoff also directed “Crumb,” the wonderfully creepy and beautiful documentary about cartoonist/artist Robert Crumb. Zwigoff clearly has a knack for telling stories of artists who don’t fit in. One of the sub-plots deals with Enid taking a summer art class in order to receive her high school diploma. There, she learns she can’t express herself without receiving unwarranted criticism. Enid and Crumb have one thing in common that shines through: Life looks better and more truthful as a painting or a cartoon. This makes me very curious to read the original source material.
Thora Birch has grown up a bit since “American Beauty.” I loved her presence in this film for many reasons. First, she looks like a real person, not a movie person. Her roundish, awkward physique adds to the authenticity of her character without making it an issue. I also liked how she repeatedly wore the same shirt on different days (the symbolic “Raptor” shirt), an idiosyncrasy we don’t see too much of in movies. She goes through most of the movie with looks of indifference, disdain and, sometimes, sadness that when she actually smiles, it’s almost shocking.
I didn’t find Rebecca quite as interesting, but I’m not sure I’m meant to. Like Enid, as soon as Seymour walks into the picture, we want to know more about him even if it means sacrificing another character. Whenever Rebecca does come back into the story, we can feel the strain of their friendship, moments in real life I’m sure we’ve all had.“Ghost World,” I’m sure, will touch many people. We’ve all gone through personality phases and we’ve all had the fantasy that living with your best friend would be a dream come true. Rarely does a movie cover so much truthful ground. Most movies these days take pages from the book of Hollywood truths where everything works out in the end. I’m sure you can find over a dozen movies in theaters right now that reek of false sentiment. Amidst all the fakery, “Ghost World” sits like a pair of jeans on the sidewalk, just waiting to be discovered.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5482&reviewer=233
originally posted: 08/13/01 14:49:33
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USA
03-Aug-2001 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
27-Jun-2002
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