Review of Ghost World (2001) by Electronick — 19 Apr 2016

This film perfectly encapsulates the "smart Cinema" sub-genre and uses it to it's advantage t o tell a story with interesting social commentary and a compelling protagonist. The film has a unique laid-back tone like "The Big Lebowski" with a protagonist who doesn't care what people think of them.

However this films seems to have a more cynical view of the world than the Coen's comedic masterpiece does. It pokes fun at today's Post Modern culture and how shallow everything has become. The title of the film is significant because it captures the meaning of the film about how materialism and the post-modern culture is really nothing more than a shell to hide truth but instead enforce people to pursue mindless escapism.

Enid (played by Thora Birch) also acts a ghost since she feels that she doesn't belong in that post-modern world. Her sarcastic sense of humor leads to a lot of subtle humor that might go over the heads of the average movie going audience but it doesn't detract from the importance of what she is saying.

She even realizes that her future love interest Seymour (played by Steve Buschemi) is also a ghost in the modern world since he fails to connect to the modern world and prefers to surround himself in antiaques.

Another major theme is post-modern societies inability to accept the harshness of their present and past states. For example, Enid tells many potential costumers about the film they are going to watch as a shallow experience (in her usual sarcastic manner) which causes her boss to fire her.

The consumers give a static and uncaring look when she warns about the picture since they have been conditioned to accept whatever has been thrown at them without questioning. Enid's questioning is damaging to the post-modern culture because it takes the empty copying of a formula to ridicule.

Another interesting piece of post-modern culture that the film takes into ridicule is the in ability to accept the reality of history which is where the infamous "coon-skin" poster comes in.

The poster has a picture of a character from a mistral show which caused a lot of people at the art show to take umbrage with it. It contrasts with the fifties diner that played modern rap music as a way to hide the actual state of racial relations at the time period the diner was supposedly paying homage to.

The poster is an actual artifact from that time-period which many people choose to ignore since it causes people to question how things have actually improved from those days. The ending in particular captures that attitude of the "Smart Cinema" movement since Edith goes on a bus at the end of the film and her fate is left unstated.

This allows the audience to determine what happens to her and to come to their own conclusions as opposed to being blindly told what had happened. This film is an excellent comedy with timeless satire that wont go into the state of irrelevance anytime soon.