Ghost World

Behind the curtain moment: I assign the star rating before I write the review. As I write the review, I might nudge it up or down a half star, but I almost always know going into the review writing having already set that rating, and write the review accordingly. I can't with Ghost Word, because I'm still working out how I feel. At this point, I'm thinking 3 1/2? We'll see by the end. The reason why is this movie is confounding. Not in a "the plot is too dense/doesn't make sense" way, but that the elements that I love and admire and appreciate are also detriments and prevent the movie from telling a fuller, more honest story. Ghost World is about two girls (sort of), Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), just graduating high school. They're sarcastic, they have no time for their classmates or the people in their town in general, and they view everything and everyone with a cynical edge that could only come from the 90's. If you're of that time, they will remind you of Daria and Jane (yes, I know the comic of Ghost World came first, but Daria and Jane were more well known than the comic, so their prominence gets the default here). Enid and Rebecca have no plans post-high school; they don't have jobs, they don't have college aspirations, they don't have boyfriends, and they don't seem to care if they do. But they do want to move in together. This becomes problematic as Enid drags her feet and befriends an older, socially awkward man (Steve Buscemi), while Rebecca is driven to make their dream happen. These factors and the way these steer the young women onto diverging paths, are the backbone of the movie. Friendship, finding your place in the world, identity, and the fear of growing up, are strong themes in Ghost World, but this isn't some "everything wraps up in a bow at the prom" Hollywood story. Before I get into the contradictions this movie presents that makes it difficult to judge, I'd like to commend the things that are done well, no questions asked. First, the dialogue and characterizations. Despite being written by men, Enid and Rebecca (and the people around them) feel and sound authentic. As a 90's teenager slash young twenty-something, As much as I love Daria and Jane, they and the show are overly quippy. Ghost World doesn't succumb to that. It is humorous, but all the humor comes naturally, not by a barrage of punchlines. Similarly, these characters are not presented as paragons. Enid and Rebecca can be funny, but their humor can cross the line into judgmental and nasty. They like practical jokes, and these can cruel. But this is also presented as the whims and whimsy of the young; above all, Enid and Rebecca are presented exactly as what 18 year olds are: incomplete human beings. That age, combined with graduating high school, are presented in real life as this demarcation line; before, a child, after, an adult, and we all know that isn't true. Nobody suddenly has their poop in a group just because they hit an arbitrarily chosen number and graduated high school. Ghost World doesn't shy away from this at all. It's part of the movie's skeleton, that they're now staring down the barrel of the gun we all have to face at some point, and they're trying to figure it out. Thora and ScarJo could pull this off in their sleep, but they show up ready to play ball. These feel like living, breathing people, and it is in no small part due to their stellar acting here. And they aren't the only ones; Buscemi's turn as Seymour, the older friend of Enid, is charming and cringey as this guy who has very niche interests, has boxed himself into a life role he does not like but can't seem to escape from, and overall seems just as lost and immature as Enid and Rebecca. Now, though, I must go in on the contradictory problem I have with the movie. The paths Enid and Rebecca take begin to diverge when they meet Seymour. Enid is charmed by his awkwardness and social anxiety. Rebecca isn't and wants to focus on getting the apartment. She gets a job. She goes apartment-hunting. She shops for housewares. Enid, meanwhile, hangs out with Seymour; she goes to a club and tries to hook him up with someone. She hangs out at his apartment in his record room. Rebecca is ready to embrace the path of adulthood; Enid is not. That's fine. Perfectly normal. But the movie starts off about the journey of Enid AND Rebecca, and once they meet Seymour, Ghost World becomes Enid's story (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Seymour's). Rebecca becomes a side character, and more importantly, a narrative point of comparison for Enid. Oh, look, Rebecca has a job, Enid hasn't even looked for one yet. Oh, Rebecca is looking at apartment listings, Enid just wants to go to a party and harass their friend at work. On the one hand, this makes sense, as it underscores how aimless Enid is and how hard she's finding it to embrace the unfortunate task of growing up. But on the other hand, this focus on Enid robs Rebecca of depth and purpose beyond Enid's checkpoint. Moreover because the movie now switches from an omnipresent third person to a singular third person perspective, Rebecca's characterization changes. She's no longer presented by the movie as equal and unique; she's presented through Enid's eyes, and because Enid just isn't in the same place mentally, Rebecca comes off as a stick in the mud or a buzzkill. She doesn't like Enid's new friends, she's annoyed at Enid dragging her feet on finding a job and getting that apartment, she's starting to like the attention young men are giving her ... and this is all presented negatively. If they were presented equally, we'd be able to see Rebecca's point of view, we could understand her frustrations at Enid's reluctance (perhaps obstinance) to follow through on their dream. Instead, Ghost World treats Enid's quest for identity, and her need to help Seymour find his, as the important threads, and Rebecca becomes a source of irritation for Enid, a way to make her feel even worse about herself. It frustrates me as a viewer because there was a way to tell a solid, impactful two-track story that didn't have to sideline Rebecca. She could've been doing these things because she feels like it's what society expects, or it's "the right thing to do". Or hell, she just really wants this dream of living together to come true and she's not going to let anything stand in her way. This sidelining of Rebecca also makes Enid kind of unsympathetic. Her feeling lost and afraid feels less like a young person who doesn't know who they are and more like an MPDG; oh, she's so whimsical, she's quirky and charming and this world just doesn't understand her! It doesn't always feel that way, but again, it feels like a consequence of pushing Rebecca to the side and then doubling down on the weird with her friendship with Seymour. They could've told the story of these two souls growing apart as a consequence of different mind-sets without relegating one to supporting cast. But having said all that, I also wonder if it is fair to even lodge these criticisms. I'm not judging the movie based on what it is or isn't. I'm judging it based on what I want it to be. What I think would make for the best version of this story. But maybe that's not the story they wanted to tell. Maybe the makers always intended Ghost World to be about Enid. Maybe the story was intended to be not about two friends and this quirky third that gets in the middle, but Enid, and how she affects the people around her and their lives as she struggles to find meaning and purpose in her own. It would be unfair of me to judge the movie for not being something it was never intended to be. If I am to judge it for what it is and if it does what it sets out do, then yes, it does what it promises and it does it very well. Enid's struggle to find herself, gaining one friendship while losing another but then discover she was defining herself BY those friendships, is an important journey teenagers can relate to. I know I struggled with that long after 18 was in the rear view, and I know I'm not the only one. Rebecca is not the rule, she is the exception. She has made a choice and she wants to pursue it hell or high water, and bless her for it, but that ain't a lot of us. But I think the issue of how she is painted as the buzzkill is still an issue, whether I'm judging this movie for what it is or for what I wish it was. Rebecca is done dirty here. She cares about Enid. She wants her best friend by her side, but it's impossible, because they're running at different speeds, and quite often, Ghost World seems to be judging Rebecca for running faster. And I feel like my issues with the movie aren't entirely without merit, because of the set-up and pivot; the first 30 minutes of this movie are about BOTH of them, not just Enid. It really does feel like THEIR story, not HER story. And then it changes. Maybe those first 30 were just the gateway to Enid's story all along, and that's fine, but they didn't feel like that. They felt like a set-up to a movie I didn't get, and I mourn that loss. What Ghost World is, is still deserving of the praise I gave it. I still love the humor, the 90's cynicism, the realistic portrayals of angst and ennui and fear and hope. This feels as authentic as the teen movies John Hughes made in the 80's; these don't feel like caricatures, or what an adult thinks a teenager looks and feels and sounds like. These feel like real people, like teenagers I knew. This is a damned good portrayal of life at that age, at that time ... but I don't feel like it's the best version of itself either. Because as good as Enid's journey is -- and for all I've said, I do mean it when I say Enid's story is well told, exceptionally acted, and timelessly resonant even if the movie's atmosphere and setting is decidedly 90's (in a way I love) -- I can't help but think telling the stories of Enid AND Rebecca would've been that much better. That would've been a 4 1/2 or even a 5.