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Ghost World [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

In an inspired opening, Ghost World begins with a montage from a 1960s Bollywood video and voyeuristic shots of the neighbours of the eponymous suburban town. This is teenage angst taken beyond the realms of the pure sexual frustration of American Pie, onto the level of displacement.

Just what lies in store for two girls after school has finished? Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) mull over life, love and the weird and wonderful inhabitants of the small town of Ghost World. But while Rebecca attempts to "grow up" by getting a job and an apartment, Enid is forced into summer Art School and begins a friendship with the sad loner Seymour (Steve Buscemi), who has more of a relationship with his seven-inches than the human race. The girls' relationship begins to strain and as the story progresses Rebecca appears in both Enid’s life and the film, less and less.

Based on the comics by Daniel Clowes, which have themselves been acclaimed as a modern-day Catcher in the Rye, and directed by Terry (Crumb) Zwigoff, Ghost World is a beautiful exploration of the confusions and choices faced by young adults. Although criticised for being slow in places, the film's pace adds extra realism to its exposure of the constraints of small-town life. The poignant ending leaves us unsure about what’s next for Enid; though from what we’ve learnt through the course of the film, going it alone and making big decisions is the only way to reap the rewards in an uncertain life.

On the DVD: Ghost World on disc comes with a standard range of special features, including a photo gallery (mainly of Birch in her distinctive costumes), trailers and one subtitle option: English for the hard of hearing. In the section entitled "Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World" there's a tour of his old neighbourhood, the inspiration for the comic, in which the author states he never made anything up; a self portrait and Clowes talking about the process of turning his comic into a film--which is about as close as you will get on this disc to a commentary. --Nikki Disney


Charmingly and refreshingly different.
Review date: 2008-09-04 Rating: 10 out of 10

Ghost World is a unique, disarming little oddball of a movie, played at a pace sufficiently light and deft to give us time to breathe in the delightful air of such sympathetic and quirky misfits. Not a great deal happens perhaps, yet each scene gives us a gentle little nudge that takes us gradually out of our cynical expectations and makes the film more watchable and satsifying than many an overwrought plot.

I found the film a pleasure from start to finish. Nearly every character is a displaced outsider struggling to fit in, from the teenage heroines to the 40 something loner Seymore. In the opening scenes, it seems we might simply be subjected to another hip teen movie revelling in a distasteful mockery and hatred of the older generation. In fact, each character in the film is so compassionately drawn and the film so superbly paced that by the end even the sight of the teenage punk Enid and the bookish older Seymore in bed together seems to 'fit'.

The film's consoling message seems to be that however much society turns each of us against and away from each other, in the end, the very same loneliness and frustrated dreams that can be shared by young and old is what gives us our common humanity.

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Reviews


Funny!... Refreshing!...Poignant!!!!
Review date: 2008-08-08 Rating: 8 out of 10

This is a really enjoyable film. Focussing its attentions upon the young person's search for identity,the perpetuation/cessation of teen-angst malaise and the fear of conventionality, this is a proverbial hoot. A cracking, well-structured script infectiously and sympathetically portrays an early, formative rites-of-passage tale with infectious and engaging humour. Everything that "Juno" ought to have been but wasn't, this is a must-see movie!

No ghosts, but funny in a sweet and melancholy way
Review date: 2007-05-11 Rating: 10 out of 10

The phone rings. Enid says, "Aren't you going to answer that?"

Seymour says, "I have no desire to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me."

He picks it up anyway and listens and then says, "That's my mother."

I just about cracked up.

Well, the whole movie cracked me up. It's a work of art from indie auteur Terry Zwigoff whom I recall as the director of the edgy documentary Crumb (1994). For some reason, as I was watching this, I thought it was directed by Todd Solondz who directed the amazingly real and funny Welcome to the Doll House (1995). I imagined this as a kind of high school/out of high school progression from the junior high school of Welcome to the Doll House. It could be, actually, with Thora Birch playing an older Dawn Weiner and having all those bad things happen to her, but still managing to survive it all. Both Enid Coleslaw and Dawn Weiner are amazingly true to life and also amazingly talented and unappreciated outsiders in this arbitrary and capricious world. Birch (whom I remember vividly from American Beauty 1999) in her glasses and all those campish outfits over her rather ample figure was just outstanding.

Scarlett Johansson who plays her friend Rebecca was as vivid as my high school date on prom night and actually prettier (I have to admit). She was also outstanding. Both Johansson and Birch are charismatic in a way that will glue your eyes to the screen. They play ultra cynical slackers who love to satirize the world and their fellow creatures as they hide their vulnerability from themselves. They are so cute.

Steve Buscemi plays Seymour, a kind of autobiographical alter ego of cartoonist Daniel Clowes (thus Enid's last name, "Coleslaw") who wrote the comic from which he and Zwigoff adapted the movie. Buscemi manages a tricky part calling for old school dorkishness, vulnerability and self-consciousness portrayed in an ultimately winning and sympathetic way.

There are a lot of amusing insider "trivia" comments about this movie at IMDb, including the fact that Sophie Crumb, daughter of Robert Crumb, did the drawings in Enid's notebook. One of the most amusing is this: "The actor who plays the high school principal in the graduation scene also plays one of the customers in the porno shop. This was not intentional--Terry Zwigoff cast him as a porno shop customer forgetting that he also played the principal."

Right.

See this for Zwigoff who has the eye and the ear of a genius, a man who knows the hearts of his characters and the mass culture they live in, and how to satirize them both, but gently with affection.

Original, wacky and often very funny
Review date: 2007-05-09 Rating: 8 out of 10

I loved this film. It is based on a comic strip book by Daniel Clowes. In one of the extras on the DVD, he explains that the title, 'Ghost World', comes from some graffiti on a garage door in his neighbourhood and he conceived it as the name of the fictional locality or town. Don't expect a ghost story!

The main characters are two young women who have just finished high school - the Jewish Enid (Thora Birch) and her 'Arian' friend, Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson). They both affect hatred of all humanity. Enid is the ringleader and she hits out at society with considerable inventiveness and malicious wit and is only constrained by compulsory attendance at art classes as a condition of her graduation. One prank leads to the third main character. They read a 'lonely hearts' ad and reply to the phone number given and pretend to be the woman the advertiser is looking for, asking him to be in a local diner at a certain time. They turn up at the time specified, identify him from his demeanour and watch him sink into despair as he realises he has been had. The pair follow him home and later engineer a meeting. Enid strikes up a relationship with the man whose name is Seymour (Steve Buscemi). He is a sad character with floppy hair and buck teeth, and he is a bit of a nerd, collecting 78 records, some very rare. He hates sports and rock and roll and regards himself as unattractive and generally a hopeless case.

Rebecca, meanwhile, has got a job and is becoming more sensible by the day. She largely drifts out of the story while Enid acts as a sorcerer's apprentice with Seymour's life. At first her puppeteer's influence is beneficial and this is mirrored in her success at her art class. Her teacher eventually sees her as possessing considerable originality but she is really plagiarising Seymour's ideas and misusing a picture she borrows from him. Her actions, which have been a bit of a lark up to now, become destructive all of a sudden and this leads to a the beginnings of a transformation.

The film is populated by a host of grotesque comic characters which add greatly to the enjoyment and, after the credits, there is an additional comic scene which reverses the outcome of one of the scenes in the main film - a nice touch.

The acting is outstanding throughout. The true soul of American film still resides in these independent productions and 'Ghost World' is another example of the inventiveness, creativity and technical skill found in these productions. An excellent antidote to Hollywood banality.

The Awkwardness Of Adolescence
Review date: 2007-05-02 Rating: 10 out of 10

I have seen this movie a few times now and i enjoy it every single time. Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebbecca (Scarlett Johansson) are two outsiders who have just graduated from high school not really knowing what they want to do with their lives (except having jobs and renting an apartment together). Enid and Rebbecca one day prank call a lonely hearts ad, they stand him up as a joke but Enid realizing from that moment she and him aren't that different she feels sorry for him and later befriends him.
Enid enrolls in an art summer school while Rebbecca works to get the apartment shes been wanting most of her life, while their friendship seems to deteriorate over the plot of the movie, Enid and Seymour (Steve Buscemi)begin to get close the most unlikely pairing from the outside but rather similar as feeling an isolation and rejection from society after being alot different from the 'norm'.
Alot of people slated this film for not really having a storyline, I guess have never felt a bit of an outcast to realize the issues of the movie. I have to admit the end was a bit disappointing i was expecting more but all in all i love the movie.
If you ever get the chance to read Daniel Clowes' graphic novels (of which the film was adapted from) then i suggest it, he is a talented man.
I recommend this for more of a teenage to young adult audience one of my staple movies growing up.


Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Brad Renfro
Thora Birch
Scarlett Johansson
Illeana Douglas
Steve Buscemi

Creators:
Steve Buscemi (Primary Contributor)
Thora Birch (Primary Contributor)
Terry Zwigoff (Writer)
Barbara A. Hall (Producer)
Janette Day (Producer)
John Malkovich (Producer)
Jonathan Weisgal (Producer)

Director(s):

Recording label: MGM
Manufacturer: MGM
EAN: 9780792850960
Binding: DVD
ISBN: 0792850963
Number of items: 1
Format: Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC,
Release date: 2002-02-05
Universal product code (UPC): 027616867650
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 111 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2001
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)

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