Ghost In The Machine

Film Review by Tadhg Curtin

Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World (2001) shows that while you can be cynical and mock the world when you’re young, you have to grow up and live in it.

Terry Zwigoff’s adaptation of Daniel Clowes’ cult comic Ghost World is one of the most melancholic of teen comedy movies. That’s not to say it isn’t funny - it is, but it has a much different vibe compared to the raunchier and crass comedies released at that time. We follow two cynical friends, Rebecca and Enid, (Scarlet Johannson and Thora Birch) graduate high school who gradually drift apart over the course of a summer with Rebecca getting a summer job with the intention of domesticating herself while Enid remains aimless, having an affair with a reclusive older man named Seymour she connects with (Steve Buscemi).

I have a real fondness for this movie having watched it for the first time at an age similar to our two heroines. I connected with their cynicism and uncertainties but it often hit too close to home for comfort. Ghost World is just over 20 years old but to a younger generation, it might as well be over 100. Released two months before 9/11, it seems like a Generation X leftover from the 90s. Its world is a different planet with a more downbeat vibe, the quiet days before technology as we know it came roaring into our lives. We watch our too-cool-for-school characters laugh at the absurdities and mundanities that make up life, some deserved, some not. Birch and Johannson are terrific with great chemistry, and Buscemi is fantastic as always as a man adrift in his life relying on items from the past for comfort.

You can only raise your eyebrow and remain ironically detached for so long. Then life begins. Get on the bus I guess. Who knows where it will take you. Available on DVD, Blu Ray & to stream on YouTube.