Category: Cinema 31
Hey all. Has anyone seen the movie Ghost World? It's one of my favorite movies. I can't accurately describe it without giving too much away, but the main character, Enid, kind of reminds me of someone. You know who you are if you've seen the movie, and me saying this isn't a bad thing for you, because I like Enid as a character. *smiles*. Not all of her reminds me of this person and myself even, just some asspects of her. Here's a little something of a review I picked up on the net.
Enid is a recent high school graduate who lives with her father (Bob Balaban) in a small apartment in Los Angeles and spends her days with her best friend,
Rebecca (Scarlett Johannson), hanging out in coffee shops and record stores. Their main activity, though, is mocking -- with a callow conviction worthy
of Holden Caulfield -- the phoniness and hypocrisy that surrounds them. Enid's capacity for scorn is unlimited: her plucked eyebrows might illustrate a
dictionary entry for ''supercilious,'' and her quiet voice shoots darts of sarcasm in every direction.
Nor does she lack targets in a landscape of retro-50's diners, pretentious latte mills, a remedial high school art class (taught by Illeana Douglas with
dead-on manic gooeyness) and an endless stream of obnoxious pseudo-bohemian losers. When boys gravitate to the less rigorously misanthropic (and conventionally
prettier) Rebecca, Enid scares them away with her glowering superiority. One of the film's narrative threads charts the growing distance between the two
friends, as Rebecca gravitates toward a maturity that Enid regards as a fatal compromise.
In her dogged search for authenticity amid the fakery that surrounds her, Enid befriends a middle-aged record collector named Seymour (Steve Buscemi). His
obsession with obscure popular culture and his grumpy disconnection from just about everything else (''I can't relate to 99 percent of humanity'') fascinate
her; he seems like a kindred spirit, the grown-up version of herself.
But Seymour's own view of himself is colored by a sense of self-loathing and failure. While Enid's estrangement from everything and everyone is in part
a youthful pose, his is rooted in the pain and frustration of unfulfilled adulthood.
Their relationship is the key to the movie's sensibility. Mr. Zwigoff and Mr. Clowes never waver in their sympathy for Enid and often share in her withering
contempt for the world around her. The movie makes fun of ignorant video store clerks and highbrow cineastes, educators and parents, the politically correct
and the politically incorrect.
But the filmmakers, despite their solidarity with Enid, also allow us to see the limitations and the dangers of her attitude, which is ultimately self-protective,
cruel and a little cowardly. As the movie gathers momentum, we see that Enid faces a delicate predicament, a crisis much more real and familiar than the
usual senior-prom agonies. Can she hold onto her critical intelligence and her skepticism without succumbing to bitterness? Can she find her way in the
world without being swallowed up in it?
By the end of ''Ghost World,'' we have some reason for hope. The movie's last third gracefully gathers the offhand observations and shaggy-dog episodes
that have accumulated along the way into a skein of comic misunderstanding. But even as the story seems to satisfy the generic requirements of comedy --
disasters are narrowly averted, misunderstandings explained away -- the filmmakers never cheat us with false promises of everlasting happiness, a prospect
that Enid would surely find appalling even if she had any reason to believe in it.
We're not sure, as we say our fond goodbye, what will become of her -- and how could we be? She's 17, with -- to revert to guidance counselor jargon --
her whole life ahead of her. We do know she has a knack for drawing and a collector's eye for the precious odds and ends, human and material, that our
culture is quick to cast aside as junk. So maybe she'll grow up to be a highbrow comic book artist like her creator. That would be fine, but I'd encourage
her (still in guidance counselor mode) to consider a different direction. With her impossibly high standards, her cranky disposition and her unshakable
(and quite justified) belief in the superiority of her judgments, she'd make a great film critic.
wow, first that movie is awesome, I've seen it a bunch of times, and second, the reviewwer gave out just about the entire film!
Well except for the last 2 minutes.
I know, but to me, the last two minutes are the deepest. *smiles*. Love the ending. It's perfect.