Recovered Classic: Ghost World


Films based on comic books immediately conjure up images of caped superheroes with amazing powers and fantastical names. But in director Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World (based on Daniel Clowes' underground comic book), although one character wields an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz music and another is prone to unleashing her vicious tongue, there isn't a superhuman in sight. When it comes to special powers, it's got more in common with Mystery Men than X-Men.

Using richly drawn characters to tell its compelling story, the film revolves around teenage outsiders Enid and Rebecca, who graduate from high school and enter the big wide world of boring conventionalism. But while Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) is ready to find a job and start looking for the apartment they agreed to share together, Enid (Thora Birch) is far more resistant. For her, remaining a misfit has far more appeal.
Firm friends throughout their school years, although they are still inclined to impulsively engage in idle mischief (mainly targeted at anyone they perceive to be a loser) their relationship starts developing cracks.

The catalyst for this is a prank they pull designed to humiliate a guy called Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a geeky collector of jazz 78s who works as a fried chicken executive. Ordinarily, he would have been forgotten in an instant, but when their paths cross again by chance, Enid strikes up an unlikely friendship and the two kindred spirits soon form an unexpected bond, one which Johansson finds as exasperating as Birch finds it exhilarating. She even describes him as being "such a coolless dork, he's almost kinda cool."

An unconventional relationship which starts out purely platonic, the bond between the 40-something and the teenager gradually dominates more screen time as Enid finds herself increasingly drawn to Seymour. When she isn't persuading him to accompany her into a sex shop or borrowing vintage advertising posters from him to take to her summer art school, she's fixing him up with a date or just hanging out in his apartment.

But Enid's carefree days are numbered. Not only does Rebecca keep pestering her to find a job so that she can afford to pay her share of the rent for the pad they've yet to find, but Birch's dad is also on the verge of getting back together with an old flame whom she despises. Then there's the small matter of the implications of that old poster, not to mention Seymour's new-found girlfriend.

Directed with a deftly assured touch, Zwigoff follows up his much-heralded documentary Crumb with a movie which works on an abundance of levels. Rife with offbeat humour and layered with pathos, his film also contains numerous metaphors for themes such as self-discovery, insecurity and growing up.
Apart from the strong trio of central characters, Zwigoff also populates his movie with a fascinating range of peripheral players, such as Enid's bonkers summer art school teacher (Illeana Douglas), a crazed customer at the store where Enid and Rebecca's mutual friend (Brad Renfro) works, an old couple whom Birch is convinced are Satanists and an old man who waits for a bus that never arrives.
But the film very much belongs to Birch (whose cartoon-style dress sense is almost a character in itself) and the ever-reliable Buscemi, for whom the part of Seymour might well have been written.

Gently paced and in no particular hurry to go anywhere, there are a handful of standout scenes (Enid dragging Seymour into a sex shop, Seymour's "party", anytime Enid gives someone one of her hilarious tongue-lashings) but it's a movie which slowly melts into your conscience rather than taking the in-your-face approach and it's so much more effective as a result.

Have the patience to see out the end credits and it will put the seal on a quite memorable experience.

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Ghost World and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.