Ghost World: A Quirky Girl and Her Unexpected Friend

I am fascinated with how Terry Zwigoff’s “Ghost World” has grown on me since I watched it for the first time around 15 years ago. At that time, I was a graduate student who was socially awkward but had been mostly happy and content with being surrounded by books and movies instead of people. I was mildly amused by its dry sense of offbeat humor and observations of its lonely adolescent heroine’s angst from a safe distance. When I revisited the film this year, I came to recognize some of that loneliness even though I’m now much older than the protagonist and her best friend.

For many adolescents out there, high school graduation is surely something to celebrate with joy and excitement before moving onto whatever will come next for them, but that is not the case for Enid (Thora Birch) and her best friend Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson). For both of these two teenage girls, their high school graduation is another boring chapter of their mundane suburban life in California. Although they have been eager to get out of their high school, Enid and Rebecca actually do not have much planned for the next chapter of their life. Sure, they promised themselves that they will get a job and then live together after graduation, but neither of them has never thought beyond that. They occupy themselves with observing their plain and dull surrounding environment with ironic detachment and a bit of naughtiness. One of their usual entertainments comes from a dorky lad named Josh (Brad Renfro), and this poor guy always becomes a schmuck to tease for Enid and Rebecca whenever they come to a local convenient store where he works as a part-time employee.

One day, there comes another opportunity for naughty fun when they happen to spot one rather pathetic personal advertisement on a local newspaper. They decide to do a mean prank, and that is how they come to encounter Seymour (Steve Buscemi). Right from when he enters a local restaurant where they are waiting for his appearance, this guy exudes that unmistakable aura of misery and loneliness, but Enid unexpectedly finds herself becoming quite interested in him in contrast to her best friend, who simply disregards Seymour as another loser to watch from the distance.

We can easily discern why Enid is so fascinated with Seymour. After all, as a girl of specific cultural taste with her own cynical sense of humor, she often feels alienated even when she hangs around with her best friend. In fact, we gradually gather that, despite their long friendship, Rebecca has stuck around Enid as a mere fellow outsider even though they do not share much between them besides their annoyance and frustration with their surrounding environment. Furthermore, Rebecca is actually ready to move forward in her own way, and we naturally come to sense more of the growing gap between her and Enid, who still fails to get stably employed unlike Rebecca.

In Seymour, Enid finds someone who can be a better alternative for friendship because, well, he is much lonelier than she is in many aspects. Whenever he is not working as an assistant manager in some local fast food restaurant chain company, he usually occupies himself with a vast collection of old LP records and some other old stuff in his residence. There is an amusing scene where Enid and Rebecca are completely at a loss while attending Seymour’s small private party full of his fellow LP record collectors.

Because Seymour has not had much luck or success in romance, Enid impulsively decides to help her new friend a bit. To their little surprise, that leads to a fairly successful dating for Seymour, but then, needless to say, both Enid and Seymour subsequently find themselves in a tricky emotional circumstance later in the story. What eventually occurs between them is not exactly surprising for us, but the movie never lets their complex relationship be simply defined by mere attraction, and we come to empathize more with the aching need and confusion inside them.

“Ghost World” was Zwigoff’s first feature film after his two documentary films “Louie Bluie” (1985) and “Crumb” (1994), which is the vivid and fascinating presentation of the life, personality, and career of legendary American cartoonist R. Crumb. As a filmmaker who did not hesitate to delve into his old friend Crumb’s personal demons while also struggling a lot with his own personal demons—he told Roger Ebert that he was so agonized by his back pain during that time that he actually slept with a gun under his pillow for killing himself at any point if that seemed necessary to him—Zwigoff was surely the right director for the dark wit and melancholic sensibility of “Ghost World.” While many of the characters are not very likable to say the least, their palpable personalities linger on us a lot more than expected. Even Enid’s hopelessly boring father leaves a bit of an impression on us despite his sheer suburban banality.

The main performers of the film are pitch-perfect in their respective roles. As the center of the film, Thora Birch effortlessly embodies the angst and loneliness churning behind her character’s defiantly sardonic attitude, and her co-star Scarlett Johansson dutifully stands by Birch. While the late Brad Renfro is solid as a lad a bit too slow for Enid and Rebecca, Illeana Douglas is hilarious as Enid’s summer art class teacher who unwisely puts the freedom of artistic expression above political correctness when Enid presents one of Seymour’s old stuffs which is quite controversial to say the least. Bob Balaban, Teri Garr, Dave Sheridan, Pat Healy, and David Cross are also enjoyable in their small but colorful supporting parts.

The best performance in the film comes from Steve Buscemi, who should have been Oscar-nominated at that time. (He received several major critics awards, including a Golden Globe nomination at least). While he can be a smart, ruthless gangster as shown from HBO TV series “Boardwalk Empire,” this ever-dependable character actor is born to play losers and loners because of his natural weary presence, and he is alternatively funny and poignant. He and Birch click with each other well with precise low-key comic timing whenever they are on the screen together, and you will not believe that he actually wanted to shed his character as soon as possible whenever the shooting was over.

On the whole, “Ghost World” can be an acquired taste, but it is still worthwhile to watch for its excellent handling of story, mood, and character. I will not go into details on the finale, but I can tell you instead that I appreciate the sublime poetic quality of a brief but important moment of epiphany for Enid, and how that beautifully leads to the tentative hopefulness of the following epilogue. Regardless of how her last shot in the film can be interpreted, you may sense that things might get better for not only her but also Seymour. Despite their cynicism you will care about what may be next for their respective lives, and that is surely an achievement.