Ghost World

Terry Zwigoff, USA, 2001, 111 minutes

Rebecca: “Face it, you hate every single boy on the face of the earth.”
Enid: “That’s not true, I just hate all these obnoxious, extroverted, pseudo-bohemian art-school losers!”

The first time I saw this movie, I wondered if there were secret tapes of my girlhood somewhere. Eerily reminiscent of my own bored, suburban teen years, where there was nothing to do except drink alarming amounts of coffee, shop for weird second-hand clothes, and bitch endlessly about high school (openly nicknamed Auschwitz), Ghost World may be the first popular film about the real life of girls. Sure, there’s Heathers, Welcome to the Dollhouse, and endless other stuff which is supposed to unleash one’s inner 15-year-old bitch, but Ghost World really comes the closest for me.

Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) graduate from high school and promptly opt out of going to college. Instead, Rebecca spends the summer looking for an apartment and schlepping lattes to losers, freaks and perverts (“but those are our people!” exclaims Enid) while Enid develops an interest in Seymore (Steve Buscemi), a local record collector. Forced to attend a remedial art class, (Illeana Douglas has a hilarious minor role as the flaky art teacher, complete with weird hair, purple batik clothing, and bad video art) Enid soon takes her talent for fucking with people to a whole new level when she uses racist advertising from the 1930s as a found art object. Amid the mean-but-funny pranks, Enid also finds time to help Seymore date, while she and Rebecca grow further and further apart. Filled with lines like “Go die, asshole!” and “Ohmigod, they’re Satanists!”, Ghost World captures the warmth and bitchiness of real friendship, set against a lurid backdrop of American suburban sprawl. I laughed, I cried, it was better than The Vagina Monologues.

Review by Sarah Artt
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2003