Ghost World, 2/5

This movie is not going to be given a fair rating.  There are a number of demographics that this movie is aimed at that I am not a member of.  However, I used to be a member of some of them, and it made the movie hard to watch.  I know someone who refuses to watch The Office (particularly the British version) because she used to work in offices like that and it dredged up bad feelings.  Ghost World did that for me.

Ghost World is a movie about two snarky, teenaged girls who have just graduated from high school and are on their way out into the world.  They have both eschewed the “normal” suburban choice of college and were going to get jobs and move into an apartment together.  Along the way they get a little side-tracked by a personal ad in the local paper.  A “bookish man in a green cardigan” is looking for a blonde woman he met on a bus.  They call him and ask him to meet this woman in 50’s diner and they watch as he waits and then they follow him home.  Their fascination with this man continues and when they see him selling some old records they buy one on his recommendation.  Enid, the darker, snarkier of the two listens to the record and loves it.  They continue to hang out with Seymour and he starts to replace Rebecca in Enid’s life.  Enid and Seymour become closer until the blonde woman, Dana, actually calls and he starts dating her.  

Meanwhile, Rebecca is working at a local coffee shop to save up money for the apartment and Enid is taking a summer art class that she needs to complete graduation.  

One of the most frustrating things about this movie was the unclear time setting.  It took me about half the movie to understand that it was set in the mid 90’s, but throughout the time seemed to waver between the 70’s and the current decade.  It wasn’t caused by the fact that Seymour kept antiques, but rather a series of vague design choices.  The cinematography and color choices suggested a certain Wonder Years quality that set me into the 70’s, as did the setting and the signage of the town, but the technology seemed like it was the 80’s.  

This movie was an interesting view into the high school world.  It was a world I inhabited, including the snarkiness and the disdain for the mainstream.  Thora Birch (Enid) and Scarlett Johansson (Rebecca) were both perfect portraits of the type and played the parts with precision, as did Steve Buscemi (Seymour).  Buscemi played his normal lovable loser, but he quite skillfully played to Enid and Rebecca creating a nice, believable relationship with Enid that Rebecca had cause to be jealous of.

The actors in here were very good, the story was interesting, and the ending was…appropriate.  However, this movie dredged up some times in my life that I did not want to go back to and people that I didn’t want to think about, so I did not like it.  I don’t know how other people will like it, but I think that it will not be a good watch for people who are past the college age.

This was an indie movie, based on an underground comic.  I have not read the comic and I don’t know that I have much desire to now.  Unlike “indie” movie Juno, this had a genuine touch, and the girls’ personalities were believable.  But at the same time, it had the earmarks of all the other indie movies.  Troubled teenagers who live in houses with weak or eccentric parents and have cluttered and unique bric-a-brac in their room.  They must befriend an older person and figure out how to be social and deal with hormones.  I want less formulas.  But it was better than Juno.

Overall:  2/5, I did not like it.  I think that had I watched it 6 years ago I would have really liked it, however, I have enough disdain for people that I don’t need to watch more of it on my off time.