June 14, 2002
Ghost World
Terry Zwigoff, the
director of the wonderfully bizarre documentary Crumb, came out with his
long-awaited followup movie Ghost World 7 years later. A tale of two teenage girls, new high
school graduates, and how they try to adapt to all the challenges life
now throws at them. Very honestly told, with an endearing quirkiness,
as you would expect if you had ever watched Crumb, it still
boils down to a story of teen angst, and the confusion of those
years. And honestly, they are ones I'm glad I don't have to do myself
again, although I'm sure I'll get to live them vicariously through my
daughters, in some future years I'd rather not think about right
now!
Enid (American Beauty's Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson from The Horse Whisperer) are two high school chums who spend their time dissing all of their classmates, and are planning on moving out of the house and sharing an apartment. Grace goes to work at the local Starbucks, much to the dismay of the more anarchist Enid, who casts about for something to do next. Enid keeps her Milquetoast single parent father under her thumb, and then runs into Steve Buscemi's Seymour, a loser with the ladies kinda guy upon whom the girls play a tasteless prank. Enid feels bad and eventually befriends Seymour, as she pushes him to see more women. But when he does get attached, Enid loses him, and loses Grace as well, who is adjusting much better to the "adult" world.
It's all acted very well, and there are quite a few amusing scenes. Illeana Douglas has an amusing turn as the high brow summer art teacher, spouting platitudes that deserve, and get, groans. And life is a bore, as any teenager will tell you, and nobody understands them, again as any teenager is sure to point out. And so poor Enid finds it hard to adjust, and she just goes away in a very strange sequence. While it's nice to see a "real" teen movie, one that attempts to get at the heart of the wildly unreasonable teenage psyche, once you're past that stage, most of us would rather move on. And when you realize just how vapid most teenage concerns are, it's hard to really take a movie about these same concerns all that seriously.
I also had a problem with the very beautiful Ms. Johansson as an outcast. Her blond good looks make her look more like one of the insiders, while Thora Birch played the outsider perfectly, with her large black glasses, funky outfits and wild hairdos. It would have been better if they had started Rebecca (even her name is normal) out more punk looking, with spikey hair and wild clothes, and then as she gradually entered the mainstream, slowly adjust her look too.
The DVD is very pretty, shown in single-sided wide-screen, but nearly devoid of any extras. There are some deleted/alternate scenes, but I didn't watch any of that, nor did I watch the music video. The soundtrack was excellent, with a wide range of sounds, from Bollywood musicals to hard core punk, blues and pop. Worth a rental, if you're interested in a wry, ironic look at how today's teen sees the world.
Buy Ghost World (Special Edition) at DVDPlanet.com
Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Brad Renfro, Illeana Douglas, Steve Buscemi
In this wry coming-of-age comedy, two social misfits learn the hard way that life gets even weirder after you graduate from high school. Posted by jdarnold at June 14, 2002 10:36 PM
