Grade: B
The reception accorded to “Crumb,” Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary about the titular cartoonist, was rhapsodic and, it seemed to the present reviewer, excessive. The film was good but hardly the masterpiece some people suggested. The same kind of extravagant praise has now been heaped upon his first fiction feature, a satirical post-high school piece fashioned by the director and Daniel Clowes, on whose underground comic book the story is based. Like “Crumb,” “Ghost World” is a good picture–witty, clever and occasionally moving. But it’s also extremely slow-moving and self-conscious, and it’s extraordinarily specialized: one can predict that fans of the artist (and of some of the performers) will embrace it wholeheartedly, but most viewers will probably be more perplexed than enchanted, and it’s likely to become a cult favorite rather than a mainstream success.
Essentially the picture is a deliberately quirky portrait of an ostentatiously oddball girl, Enid (Thora Birch), a supremely cynical and dismissive thing who dresses in goth style and, along with her inseparable high school pal Rebecca (Scarlet Johansson), treats the world around her with undisguised contempt. The two plan to get jobs and an apartment together, but Enid has to complete a remedial art class during the summer in order to graduate, and in any event her natural lethargy suggests that she’ll never fulfill that plan, especially since Rebecca is growing increasingly conventional and it’s clear that their friendship will soon be tested. There is, moreover, a further complication: the two girls play a nasty practical joke on a neighborhood dweeb named Seymour (Steve Buscemi) by pretending to respond to a personal ad that he’s placed and then leaving him alone and humiliated when he goes to meet the respondent. Enid, however, insists on following up by getting to know Seymour, and when she does she finds herself growing to admire the sadly isolated, but likable fellow who’s as alienated from the life around him as she is. Something vaguely like affection springs up between them, and when Enid’s attempt to serve as matchmaker for Seymour actually works, she’s a bit jealous of his successful attachment. In the final reels, “Ghost World” is actually an arms-length romance between the two, though one that, in the final analysis, may be entirely too odd to survive Enid’s need to find her own place.
There’s a lot that’s excellent in Zwigoff’s picture. Birch is wistfully moving as Enid, and unafraid to show herself as a plump, at times very unattractive, youngster. (There’s a very funny sequence where she bombs in her trial as a concession stand worker in a multiplex.) Buscemi responds with a thoroughly charming performance as the gentle, hesitant Seymour, whose life centers around collecting memorabilia, especially old 78rpm blues records. When the film concentrates on them, it achieves some wonderful moments. Illeana Douglas is also very funny as Enid’s weirdly committed art teacher, and some of the gags involving her class are among the best stuff in the movie.
On the other hand, the rest of the cast is pretty much wasted in peripheral material that never adds much. Johanssen is given little to do but look sheepish, Brad Renfro is opaque as a convenience-store clerk who’s badgered by Enid and Rebecca, and Bob Balaban merely does his catatonic shtick as Enid’s clueless dad. Even worse are Teri Garr, who does a cameo as the estranged stepmom whom Enid despises, and Stacey Travis as Buscemi’s love interest. There’s also an all-too-artsy denouement involving Enid and a bus that shouldn’t be there; the ending struggles for a message that’s all too banal.
“Ghost World” is one of those little films that will provide modest enjoyment for viewers who like a challenge and don’t go expecting too much. But the chorus of critical praise it’s been getting will probably insure that it will attract a lot of people whose expectations are far too high and who will only be bewildered by it. Keep your hopes down, though, and be willing to accept something off the beaten track, and you should find it sometimes very funny and periodically poignant, too–but far from perfect.