Movie review by Gwen! David: Ghost World

digresssmlOriginally published September 28, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1454

Enter, a bunch of teenagers sitting around in a room, bored. It’s the summer before their senior year in high school, and a week and a half before school actually starts. They want to make this week and a half count. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to do in this godforsaken town. Their plans to go to the beach and have a picnic dinner have been smashed by the rain.

Teen One: He gets off work at five, right? And then he’s coming to pick us up?

Teen Two: Yeah. But we kinda have to figure out what we’re going to do before he shows up.

Teen Three: Hmm… nothing to do.

Silence

Teen One: Hey, I read that email you sent out. Isn’t there some new movie out with Steve Buscemi?

Teen Three: Yeah, it’s an awesome movie called Ghost World. I highly recommend seeing it.

Light bulbs go off over each of their heads

Teen Three: Hey, let’s go see that. Do you want to?

Teen Two: I’m up for it. Sure.

And off they went. Peter David’s daughter, her best friend Cayley, a French kid, and a designated driver schlepping out to Huntington, a good 45 minute drive, to see a movie. And they lived happily ever after…

* * *

Yep, it’s me again. Gwen! David. My dad took me a few weeks ago to see Ghost World with Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi.

It’s based on a Fantagraphics comic book, with the same title, by an author named David Clowes. The comic book revolves around two girls, Enid and Rebecca, who have just graduated high school, and are trying to decide what to do with themselves in a world where nothing is appealing to them. The movie has pretty much the same basis.

The film starts out with best friends Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) graduating high school. At first they are relieved that the monstrosity that is high school has finally ended, until Enid finds out that to officially graduate, she must take a remedial art course over the summer, because she failed it during the year. A lot of the movie revolves around Enid’s infatuation with the much older Seymour, a man in his mid thirties whose life revolves around collecting old records. In the beginning, she becomes friends with Seymour, because she finds him pathetically amusing. But she soon becomes obsessed with him. This takes a toll on her relationship with Rebecca, especially because they had been planning on getting an apartment together after high school. This is until Enid loses interest in just about everything except for Seymour. Much to Enid’s surprise, Seymour gets a girlfriend, and they have a great relationship. However, because he now has a girlfriend, he starts to see less and less of Enid. This greatly upsets her. At one point towards the end of the film, she goes to Seymour’s house and talks of moving in with him. At first he is reluctant, but then later, he takes what she’d said seriously, breaks up with his girlfriend, and asks Enid to move in with him. It’s not until then that she realizes what she’s done, and how she was just talking. She was pretty much testing him out… seeing if he was listening to what she was saying. She was half joking, and when he takes her seriously, she doesn’t know what to do. The seriousness of her relationship with Seymour, on top of her falling out with Rebecca causes her to become perplexed with her new situation. Enid begins to feel that everyone and everything she had depended on was leaving her. Not knowing quite what to do, she boards a bus to a destination unknown, with nothing but a hatbox, and the dream that she will go somewhere that no one knows her, start a new life, and never tell anyone back home what happened to her.

Now, I think I’m supposed to say how this relates to me… or something like that. Okay, here goes: I feel I can relate to Enid on many levels. I am now a senior in high school, and still don’t quite know what to do with myself. Enid wants to move forward with her life, but in trying to do so, ends up staying still. She has her own style and believes in doing things her own way, no matter what other people think; she doesn’t let them get to her. She is a bit gloomier than I am though. I very much want to go to college (please buy my Dad’s books, and donate to the Send Gwen! to college fund!), while Enid has no interest at all in it. Also, Enid’s only real friend is Rebecca, while my social circle encompasses many people.

When I saw Ghost World for the second time with my friends, I asked them what they thought. They all said they liked it very much, and could also relate to the characters.

After reading the comic and seeing the movie, I suddenly realized that I didn’t quite understand the basis for the title. I mean, there are no literal “ghosts” anywhere in either of them. I have a few theories as to the where it comes from:

  1. Ghosts haunt people. To most people, ghosts are a scary thing and should be avoided at all costs. To Enid, the outside world is a terrifying place. Being thrust into it, is like having an encounter with a ghost. You want to try to touch it, and see what it’s like, but at the same time, you’re frightened by it, and want to run and hide.
  2. Enid goes throughout the movie trying to make a dent. Trying to be heard. She wants to have an effect on people, whether it’s good or bad. She’s gone through so much of her life with people not paying attention to her, and not listening to her, that she begins to consider herself a ghost to not only the people, but the world around her. Hence, she lives in a Ghost World.
  3. Throughout a large part of the picture, we see things from Enid’s perspective. We see that when she does things, she does them without considering or even caring about their impact on the people around her. So it’s possible, that she considers herself the only real person there, and that everyone around her is a ghost.

I really feel that David Clowes and whoever else wrote/directed/produced this movie did a fantastic job. Most of the films you see now that are about teen life show us as a bunch of stupid idiots who are too stoned to realize that there’s more to life than sex, drugs, and rock & roll. All the plots are really far-fetched and have holes big enough to drive a Mack Truck through. Granted, lots of teenagers I know are complete morons, but most of us are only a little dopey sometimes. We’re really quite smart and have a lot of interesting ideas.

All in all, I’d like to say go see Ghost World if it’s playing in your area, and if it’s not, find somewhere that is playing it, and go see it. It really makes you think…

(Gwen! David, Student of… stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

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