'Ghost World' offers portrait
of people who won't
conform
 Jeremy
Rea
Staff Writer
Based on Daniel Clowes' celebrated comic book of
the same name, "Ghost World," no matter how touching, is bound to live
in obscurity.
Of course, the reclusive Clowes, who co-wrote the
film along with director Twerry Zwigoff, would never aspire to write
to a mainstream audience because he can't understand them. Nor does
he want to.
Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlet Johanson)
have just graduated high school with no intentions of going to college,
or become a functioning part of the workforce.
Cynical and too disaffected to even find irony
in the world around them, the only plan in their future is to find an
apartment together.
Attempting to alleviate the banality of their post-high
school existence, Enid and Rebecca set up a phony date with a middle
class loser named Seymour (Steve Buscemi) who had printed a personal
ad in the newspaper.
Watching him drink his milkshake alone at a restaurant,
however, the two find the sight more depressing than hysterical. Especially
Enid, who sees something intriguingly genuine in the totality of his
social ineptness.
They follow him home and eventually Enid forms
a friendship with Seymour. She becomes determined to find him a date,
hoping she doesn't truly live in a world where someone intelligent and
without pretense cannot find companionship.
Her bond with Seymour creates a vague split with
Rebecca, who has secured a job in a coffee shop and is apparently developing
a willingness to accept the unexceptional life in her future.
The humor in "Ghost World" is inextricably tied
to the sorry lives of its inhabitants, from the mullet-sporting loser
who practices his nunchukas in a parking lot to the loser who waits
vainly for a bus line that has been cancelled for two years.
Birch's performance as a girl who can't stomach
living a normal life yet is horrified by a life of solitude is painfully
nuanced, as is Buscemi's portrayal of a man grown so accustomed to ostracization
that he can no longer imagine anything else.
The film's only major fault is that in its attempt
to expose the secret unhappiness and hollowness that permeates existence,
it fails to show anyone who seems in the least satisfied and well-adjusted.
It's not very hard to lampoon the guy at the theater concession stand
who rules with an iron fist.
That aside, "Ghost World" is a wonderfully touching
portrait of those who will never succeed by accepted standards because
they simply don't want to.
"Ghost World" can be seen in Castleton Arts Theater,
Indianapolis. Showtimes and directions are available by calling 317-849-3471.
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