‘Ghost World’

Awkwardly above-it-all comic book characters come to life in this edgy screen conversion.   [R]

By: Kam Williams
   Ghost World, an automatic entry on my annual top 10 list, is based on Daniel Clowes’ uncensored, underground comic book about Enid and Rebecca, two rebellious, rudderless teen-agers totally out of sync from everything status quo. The film is set in the nowhere-land endless summer of discontent just after high school graduation, where the girls find themselves at large and at odds with a mainstream they already despise.

Ghost World stars Scarlett Johansson (left), who played a traumatized adolescent in The Horse Whisperer, and a retrofitted Thora Birch, transformed from the brainless brat of American Beauty.

   This sophisticated coming-of-age tale pits this pair of put-down artists against any unfortunates who cross their path. With bleak prospects for work and bleaker chances for romance, our eternal outsiders roam the streets aimlessly, making running commentary on a post-modern dullsville inhabited by the undifferentiated denizens of strip malls and fast food emporiums.
   Despite the attitudes, Enid and Rebecca are eminently likable, their bitterness characterized by the natural fallout from living in social limbo. Thus, the endlessly inventive script keeps us empathizing with these terminally excluded refugees from convention, even as they spew indefensible swipes at Jews, gays and others.
   The adroit adaptation comes courtesy of originator Clowes, who has collaborated with director Terry Zwigoff to produce the most ingenious cinematic offering of the summer. Zwigoff is best known for the critically acclaimed Crumb, an eye-opening biographical film about oddball cartoonist Robert Crumb. That film, the third-biggest moneymaking documentary ever, established the director as a genius with an uncanny ability to capture the eccentric on film.
   Ghost World can only add to the Zwigoff aura. It stars a retrofitted Thora Birch, transformed here from the brainless brat of American Beauty into an arrogant above-it-all. As Enid, Birch remains almost unrecognizable under a get-up that includes horn-rimmed glasses, blue hair and black lipstick. Her flip portrayal of the misanthrope is certainly worthy of Oscar consideration.
   Scarlett Johansson, now 16, who played a traumatized adolescent in The Horse Whisperer, holds her own as Rebecca, Enid’s equally sour sidekick.
   The almost eternally girlish Teri Garr, who got her start doing the jerk in nine Elvis Presley bikini movies back in the ’60s, finally looks her age in a cameo as Enid’s stepmom. Garr is best remembered, of course, for an Academy Award-nominated role in Tootsie.
   Steve Buscemi, ever the understated scene-stealer, injects considerable energy into the movie as Seymour, a pathetic, middle-aged nerd Enid scorns. Seymour is a clueless bachelor who runs personal ads in the paper, collects old 78 rpm phonograph records and hosts a weekly garage sale. The tragi-comic interplay of malcontent Enid and maudlin Seymour, two misfits with nothing going on and nothing to lose, rests at the center of the story. There is a poignancy to the offbeat but very real relationship that develops, as the film asks us to acknowledge that losers are people, too.
   The periphery of Ghost World is every bit as interesting, with director Zwigoff hand-picking everything from its stellar supporting cast to its eccentric extras and colorful locations. Where else might one learn about Seymour’s employer, the Coon’s Chicken Inn?
   The real Coon’s Chicken actually operated from 1929 until the late 1950s. Patrons would enter each establishment by walking into the huge open mouth of a grinning black man, a larger-than-life caricature, the company logo.
   This kind of thought-provoking dialogue and socially significant backdrops make Ghost World a surreal ride into a parallel universe, one far away from the formulaic pap of most teen movies.
Rated R. Contains strong language and some sexual content.