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This one line from the beginning of Ghost World is a perfect example of the film's cynical yet insightful look at the trials of adolescence. It reminds me of my own high school experience, where I found myself disgusted that the school paper was running glowing tributes to the "kindhearted" and "sensitive" suicide case who just days earlier was a rotten jackass bully and a lousy excuse for a human being. It's funny how the group perception of a person changes after something bad happens to them, even though the person does not. There are always a few who see through the charade, and are usually ostracized for their perception.

Movies about misunderstood teenagers are nothing new (I'm sure that Rebel Without a Cause will remain the defining example), but it is always refreshing to see a film that can explore this particularly awkward time of life with such keen observation and a total lack of condescension. Ghost World is about that one specific moment when adolescence is just about to end but adulthood has not yet begun. Its two heroines, freshly graduated from high school, banded together because they never quite fit in with the crowd in their pasts, but are now drifting apart because they are missing direction for their futures. These were the kids who never wanted to be normal, who embraced all things weird and dysfunctional as some statement of outsider rebellion, but are starting to realize that this attitude was itself a predefined cliche.

One of them, Rebecca, is a little faster to understand this and wants to settle down into productive life with a paying job and an apartment that will give her some independence; she sees the end goal and is willing to be flexible in order to achieve it. Enid, the more uncompromising of the two, considers her a sellout. Rebecca knows that to get a nice apartment they should present themselves as respectable middle class young adults, but Enid would rather dye her hair green and dress up like a punk, not just some modern punk but " obviously a 1977 original punk rock look".

The movie is mostly Enid's story. Another film would have turned her into a joke, some exaggerated stereotype of everything a parent fears their child will turn into. Worse yet, it could have taken her on a formulaic "journey of discovery" where she learns how much nicer it is to conform and act normal than to be so stubborn and weird. (Witness the Christine Lahti film My First Mister if you are desperate to apply that type of pat moral lesson to this material).

Ghost World is, thankfully, not either of those movies. It is simply the story of a smart girl trying to find her place in a world that she rejects because she believes that it has rejected her. She uses her sarcasm and wit as weapons to fight off the superficiality and banality around her. She may encounter people who force her to adjust her perceptions, but the revelations she has are mostly small ones, and if she changes at all in the end that is because she was heading in that direction all along.

Terry Zwigoff's last movie was the documentary Crumb, about a reclusive comic artist. He hasn't really strayed too far off that path. His first narrative feature is based on a comic book by Daniel Clowes (who co-wrote the screenplay) about another sort of disaffected loner. The sketches in Enid's journal were even drawn by R. Crumb's daughter, to bring things full-circle. Zwigoff's documentary background makes him attentive to character and detail, a trait that serves the story well.

Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson are given enough room to develop terrific performances for the leads. The movie is also graced by marvelous supporting turns from Steve Buscemi, Illeana Douglas, and Bob Balaban. Buscemi's role as an obsessive record collector is so perfectly realized that it may almost hit too close to home for some movie buffs. During the scene where he allows Enid into his private record room, I found myself looking over at my own shelving unit full of video discs and feeling an uncomfortable similarity. Be sure to stick around all the way through the end credits for a special surprise.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film is letterboxed to approximately 1.85:1 with anamorphic enhancement. I could have sworn that the movie was projected at 2.35:1 when I saw it theatrically, but that seems to be my memory playing tricks on me. An impartial source confirmed for me the narrower theatrical ratio, and there is certainly nothing wrong with the composition as seen on this disc...

Anyway, this is a recent film, so naturally the source elements are in flawless condition, free of distracting scratches or artifacts. The DVD transfer is also excellent, with deep colors and at least a reasonable sharpness. What stands out to me on second viewing is that the film utilizes a palette of vibrant comic book colors without drawing attention to the fact that it is doing so. They are all replicated to perfection. A few scenes are grainy, but this is more a side effect of the production's modest budget than any sort of transfer error. The movie does not have a flashy photographic style, so the DVD will probably never be demo material, but I have no objections about its quality.

Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?

Like its photography, the movie's sound design is fairly subdued. Though presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, this is a dialogue driven sound mix with restrained musical envelopment and only a few noteworthy directional effects, mostly restricted to the front soundstage. That is appropriate for the material, of course, and should not be taken as a complaint. The Dolby Digital track is more than satisfactory for its needs. Dialogue is crisp, sound effects are sharp, and the musical presence feels well balanced.

Optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles have been provided, along with English Closed Captioning.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

MGM did not go out of their way to load this disc with extra features, but they have thrown together a few perfunctory supplements that are a little amusing.

It would sound like the four deleted/alternate scenes should be the highlight of the disc, but they each run barely a minute or less in length, and two of the clips are variations on the same scene. They are pretty funny, though: "I've been on Cops!" The 11-minute The Making Of Ghost World featurette is, as expected, a bland puff-piece produced for the movie's press kit and recycled here simply because it was available. The clips from the movie look terrible, and there is nothing in the content worth watching more than once.

The one supplement I find myself rewatching is the "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" music video, actually a 5-minute scene from the 1965 Indian film Gumnaam, clips of which are seen on a television at the beginning of Ghost World. If you thought the clips were surreal, wait until you see the whole sequence. This is a very bizarre musical number, featuring a woman who appears to be having an epileptic seizure and is loving every minute of it. I can't describe it, but the piece is strangely addictive.

Finishing off the disc are a theatrical trailer for this film, a commercial for the soundtrack album, and two more trailers for other MGM titles. Most of the supplements on the DVD are letterboxed, but none of them are anamorphically enhanced.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts