Ghost World (2001)
Average Rating: 7.8/10
Reviews Counted: 153
Fresh: 141 | Rotten: 12
With acerbic wit, Terry Zwigoff fashions Daniel Clowes' graphic novel into an intelligent, comedic trip through deadpan teen angst.
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 38 | Rotten: 1
With acerbic wit, Terry Zwigoff fashions Daniel Clowes' graphic novel into an intelligent, comedic trip through deadpan teen angst.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 71,146
Movie Info
Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff, who enjoyed breakthrough success with his 1994 documentary Crumb, shifts gears as he examines the lives of two young women on the verge of leaving their adolescence behind in his first dramatic feature. Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) are two close friends who've just graduated from high school, and are trying to decide what to do with their lives. Enid is a dark-haired arch cynic who is tired of living at home with her ineffectual dad (Bob Balaban)
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Cast
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Thora Birch
Enid -
Steve Buscemi
Seymour -
Scarlett Johansson
Becky -
Brad Renfro
Josh -
Illeana Douglas
Roberta -
Bob Balaban
Enid's Dad -
Teri Garr
Maxine -
Stacey Travis
Dana -
Rini Bell
Graduation Speaker -
Tom McGowan
Joe -
Ashley Peldon
Margaret -
David Cross
Pushy Guy -
Charles Schneider
Joey McCobb -
Pat Healy
John Ellis -
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All Critics (154) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (141) | Rotten (12) | DVD (38)
The greatest distinction of "Ghost World" is its singular spirit. Here's a dark, deadpan comedy about alienated kids that manages to be smart, surpassingly odd, extremely funny and mysteriously endearing at the same time.
See it for Birch's hostile stare and Johansson's devastating monotone.
By sharp turns poignant, disturbing and hysterically funny.
It isn't a perfect film, but it's never less than strikingly original.
Top CriticZwigoff pulls off something in Ghost World that seems a minor miracle -- he creates someone with a complex inner life.
It has qualities -- a ferocious wit and a youthful snap and savvy -- that can make it irresistible to sophisticated older moviegoers and intelligent teenagers alike.
While this isn't a showy or flashy movie, it has social, psychological, and ultimately mystical overtones that raise it leagues above most other teen-centered comedies.
The modest yet redeeming triumph of Ghost World is the offhand way it brings to the screen a streak of American dark humor that is dour, resilient and unexpectedly infectious.
A top draw adaptation of a cracking comic-book.
Like "Rushmore" with a female slant, "Ghost World" tackles the true torches we often keep to ourselves as well as the struggle of feeling like a specter, or, as Enid says, as though "everyone's too stupid to realize you."
Most of Ghost World is funny, but the laughs are inextricably tied to the painful alienation and self-loathing that comes with living on society's fringes.
...satisfying in ways that more than compensate for the film's soft ending.
A pretty good comedy with great performances by its cast but fails in its delivery.
If more people appreciated stories like this, movies and comic books would be better off.
Anyone who grew up in the suburbs or ever felt out of place will find something to relate to in this film.
his is 'teen comedy' of startling sophistication -- with horribly funny bits as well. A true original, with sharp humour, subtle detail and painfully realistic characters.
Based on Clowes' underground comic book, this is a tale of how the mediocrity of American subsurbs can suffocate its creative denizens, all misfits of course; it's extremely well acted by Steve Buscemi and Thora Birch.
Zwigoff makes Enid's neighborhood a truly strange and haunted place, where plastic people robotically follow their society's norms, and those who resist are left angry, alienated, and without any ideas for how to survive.
Like its heroine, Ghost World dares to drop its defenses, deepening as it shifts from evoking sympathy for the judgmental misanthrope to saluting the bravery of those who find beauty in others' flaws.
É interessante notar como duas amigas, inicialmente tão próximas em seu cinismo e em sua presunção, se distanciam gradualmente, embora pouca coisa mude além do universo colegial que as cercava.
There are bits of wicked humor, but Zwigoff begins by laughing at the kooks in Clowes' ghost of a world and never stops. The real crime is that Clowes is content to join in with him.
Audience Reviews for Ghost World
Super Reviewer
Movies Like Ghost World
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- Becky: Some people are OK, but mostly I just feel like poisoning everybody.
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- Enid: Go die, asshole.
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- Enid: [at the graduation ball, Enid watches a loner classmate eating a slice of cake by himself] God, just think, we'll never see Dennis again.
- Becky: [shrugs] Good.
- Enid: No, really think about that. It's actually totally depressing.
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- Enid: Everyone's too stupid!
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- Seymour: You give them a Big Mac and a pair of Nikes and they're happy. I can't relate to ninety-nine percent of humanity.
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- Seymour: Well, I have to admit that things are really starting to look up for me since my life turned to shit.
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Latest News on Ghost World
May 22, 2013:
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Top Headlines
I suppose that would be how the film's title creates a rather analogous feel between the world, people, and how things are never quite what they seem to be. And of course, people just fade away in one way or another. That sounds really depressing, but it doesn't have to be if we're living in the moment and appreciate what we have, not what we don't. This is something the two main characters Enid(Thora Birch) and Becky(Scarlett Johansson) do not understand due to their age and the feeling that they have to get out of where they've been after they graduate from high school. Sure this would be natural, but their priorities and outlooks are clouded raising the question of who they are and where they belong.
Steve Buscemi portrays a memorable withdrawn character named Seymour who the girls meet as he's selling old records at a yard/garage sale. Things for him are somewhat bleak as a record collector with a dull job and a girlfriend that keeps him in a rut that he desperately needs to get out of. When he develops a "relationship" with Enid, he begins to realize how things for him do indeed need to change. But in a "Ghost World", perhaps ideas and plans just like to haunt those who can't seem to function in the light of day.
Yet, there is a light side to this film with some cheap laughs which are always of value.