It's the best
smile you'll get through the whole movie
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|
Plenty of freaks,
plenty of weirdoes but not a ghost in sight.
Nigel
Bell
And there was I thinking this was going to be the third big low
budget scary movie of the year (after Ginger
Snaps and Jeepers
Creepers).
How wrong. The
Ghost World in question is the weird domain inhabited by
Enid and Rebecca, the central characters of the movie based on the
comic art of Daniel Clowes.
Rebecca is played
by Johansson, recently seen as the temptress in The
Man Who Wasn't There. Thora Bird (Enid) has come a long
way since portraying Harrison Ford's daughter in Patriot Games.
The film begins
with graduation day. Unlike their friends, Enid and Rebecca are
not going onto college. For them school life is to be replaced by
employment and sharing an apartment together. At least that's the
plan...it's also the beginning of their break up.
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| Come and
see my 78s little girl |
The 18-year-olds
can't relate to anything in modern society. They prefer mixing with
losers and creating their own entertainment, like scanning the personal
ads column and fixing up blind dates for people.
It's this which
brings them into contact with Seymour (Buscemi), a middle ranking
manager of a fast food chain who'd prefer to spend his days cataloguing
his collection of 78rpm blues records.
A sad guy for
sure, but it's sad guys and girls who proliferate Ghost World.
Despite beginning
as an object of ridicule, Enid becomes more attached to Seymour,
especially as life at home becomes increasingly unbearable.
 |
| Time to
find someone a friend |
Their relationship
develops further as best friend Rebecca begins to conform (she gets
a job, actively looks for a flat).
Ghost World
has touches of Coen brother magic about it. Interesting characters
who aren't Hollywood beautiful.
There's a feminist
arts teacher and a man who spends all his days sitting at a bus
stop waiting for a bus which was cancelled two years previously.
By the end of
the film this man has become the only constant in Enid's crumbling
life.
Stand out scene
is when the girls gate crash Seymour's "party" only to
discover it's a meeting of fellow record enthusiasts debating whether
CD gives the same reproduction quality and warmth of vinyl.
We've all been
there...haven't we!?
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