Product Description

Thora Birch (American Beauty) and Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation) "sneak into your heart and stay there" (Rolling Stone) in this "eerie, masterful movie" (Movieline) from the acclaimed director of Crumb. Co-starring Brad Renfro (Deuces Wild), Illeana Douglas (Stir of Echos) and Steve Buscemi (Fargo) in "the best role of his career" (Movieline), Ghost World is a "smartly strange comedy [that] stands out like the Taj Mahal" (Time)! While their classmates head for college, Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson) focus their energies on tormenting those around them - from a goofy convenience store clerk (Renfro) to an eccentric art teacher (Douglas). But when they zero in on an oddball loner (Buscemi) looking for Miss Right, their seemingly innocent meddling threatens to shatter one of their hearts not to mention their lifelong friendship.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11452 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-02-05
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.com
If you've ever felt alienated by the world around you, Ghost World will offer laughter, tears, and reassurance that you are definitely not alone. Adapted by Daniel Clowes and Crumb director Terry Zwigoff from Clowes's acclaimed graphic novel, the movie spends summer vacation with high school graduates Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlet Johansson). They inflict little tortures on the denizens of urban sprawl, wielding scathing irony as a defense against a "ghost world" full of pop-cultural lemmings and uncertain futures. But when Enid picks a 40-ish vintage-record collector (Steve Buscemi) as the target of her latest cruel prank, she finds herself unexpectedly attracted to him ("he's the opposite of everything I completely hate") and is forced to confront her own crushing loneliness. This combination of deadpan sarcasm and deeply compassionate humanity makes Ghost World a rare and delicate comedy, with an ambiguous ending that suggests tragedy or hope, depending on your own point of view. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
Two strip-mall Savonarolas, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), gaze with disgust at the fallen world around them. Terry Zwigoff's movie is based on Daniel Clowes's celebrated cartoon novel, which he and Clowes adapted. For a while, "Ghost World" seems to be a new type of dyspeptic comedy, acid yet tender. Zwigoff's sense of visual elegance gives clarity and snap to material that might have fallen into a crabby nowheresville. But the movie loses its cool. It zeroes in on Enid's unhappiness, and she begins to seem like a typical teen-ager who makes jokes to cover her pain and who needs to grow up. See it for Birch's hostile stare and Johansson's devastating monotone. With Steve Buscemi as a nominal adult who collects vintage blues seventy-eights. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Wonderful film, intelligent, surprisingly compassionate, and humanistic...
This is a great, great movie. It could have easily gone off into another variation of the typical indie film. Instead of being smug and overly quirky like many indie films can be, this film is genuine, intelligent, and humanistic as well. I atttribute this to the director, Terry Zwigoff, who directed one of my favorite documentaries, Crumb, and the two excellent leads, Steve Buscemi and Thora Birch. Buscemi here is especially good, playing a character that could have easily turned into a caricature with a lesser director and actor. Buscemi plays a lonely 42 year old bachelor who lives with an astonishing record collection. Some may have portrayed him with snark and made him look like a loser, but Buscemi and Zwigoff give him humanity and soul, and it makes for one of Buscemi's greatest performances. He's really underrated as an actor. Birch is excellent, too, as the sarcastic, yet human girl who takes a liking to Buscemi. Again, their romance feels real, and she seems to genuinely like him, despite the differences in age. It's not forced, sleazy, and it's not done for the sake of being quirky. This is one of the best indie films I've ever seen.

The hollow women
Touted as a film on "over 140 Top Ten Lists" and "Best Film of the Year," "Ghost World" really works. The fact that I had to watch it twice just to finish it doesn't mean much. I fell asleep the first time. I was tired and the movie was boring. Nix that. Because I was tired, the movie was boring.

The second time I was totally alert to this film rife with meaning. Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlet Johannson) have been friends for ten years and have that mental telepathy of friendship of the closest kind. However, their friendship is based on being outsiders and isolated from the slightest connection with others, thus a friendship by default.

Cynical and world-weary even as a recent graduate from high school, Enid finally finds a job in a movie theater doling out snacks to wary and unwary moviegoers. Enid does not mince words and if she says, How much chemical sludge do you want on your popcorn?, you really can't blame the supervisor for firing her.

The fact that the two young women are going to get an apartment together means a job is essential. Score a negative for Enid. Rebecca is disappointed. Again Rebecca expresses disapproval of Enid's cynical nature concerning boys. None is any good! The viewer can watch Rebecca's slow, yet discernible twist away from her best friend in this significant summer of growth. Change is inevitable, life is inexorable.

The second weak link of summer is Enid's art class which she must pass to keep her diploma. The art teacher is a pseudo-hippy, quarking out artisms, not to impress, but because she is a product of this Ghost World. What has meaning? Art? What kind of art?

Two oddities stream out of this segment: the poster Enid submits to make a statement and the art that is real, Enid's notebook of art created because she really is talented.

The poster unifies the film in that it is the possession of Seymour (Steve Buscemi), an older version of Enid, disillusioned, unsettled with the world at large, and a citizen in the world of his own making. Seymour is Enid's hero and she unlikely bonds with him mentally and physically.

Sleepwalk. The major characters sleepwalk through their lives, until Rebecca wakes up to self in the grand way that recent graduates can do. Enid becomes more entrenched in her self-imposed isolation in this Ghost World. It's not a happy film, but then life does not always offer happiness. Take it the way you find it or change it. That's what Enid does. (Intentional ambiguity)

Trippy.
Ghost World could have been a lot better and more special. Thora Birch is a great actress and she's good in this unique indie film but the plot and ending leaves the audience with many unanswered questions. Steve Buscemi and Scarlett Johansson also star and the late Brad Renfro. Ghost World is based on a comic book, so expect a dark comedy. Wish I liked this film more but it is just ok for me.